THE WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY TAKE ON THE STRIKES

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Brown guarantees the banks while he cuts workers wages

http://wrp.org.uk/news/2523

THE Brown government has not just guaranteed all of the Northern Rock bank deposits, it has also underwritten its so called ‘commercial paper’, that is all of the worthless ‘promises to pay’, which cannot be honoured, and left the bank with many tens of billions of debts around its neck.

The Bank of England has turned this worthless paper into being as good as cash for the bankers, for the moment anyway.

This inflationary action is in line with the role of some of the most extreme right wing governments in the recent history of Europe.

Mussolini for example followed the same policy in relation to the bankrupted Italian capitalists in the period following the 1929 crash.

His regime took over and even nationalised bankrupt industries, pumping money into them, and then handing them back to the grateful employers.

The Brown government has, in fact, agreed to provide the same service for all of the banking institutions that are currently keeping their indebtedness as quiet as possible, but in reality need massive amounts of ‘liquidity’, that is untold billions of cash pumped into them.

The full depth of the current financial crisis has yet to emerge.

As it is, Britain’s position is that of the most indebted of the advanced countries, with a record balance of trade deficit, and a record level of domestic debt, where £1.3 trillion of debt dwarfs the gross domestic product of £1.2 trillion.

Brown’s pledge to bale out the banks will return to haunt him, when the deepening of the crisis sees the major banks demanding rescue.

This moment may come with the start of a major run on the vastly overpriced pound sterling.

We saw at the time of Black Wednesday that the Bank of England was powerless to stop the run, and capitulated, bringing Britain out of the ERM.

This time round it will be national state bankruptcy that stares capitalist Britain in the face, a huge catastrophe for a country that imports much more than it exports, including most of its food and fuel.

Brown’s policy is now steering Britain towards the rocks.

The fact that the whole state is concentrating on preserving the bankers and the capitalists leads it directly on to the prosecution of a permanent and desperate war on the working class and its trade unions, to seize much more of the surplus value that the working class produces, to hand it over to the bosses.

The economic crisis and this class contradiction is the driving force of the current struggle to smash the CWU communication workers union, by sacking 40,000 workers, terminating the industry’s final salary pensions scheme, bringing in extreme flexibility that puts the worker at the disposal of the employer, and bringing in a new code of industrial relations, which can be summarised as ‘the boss can do no wrong’.

What is happening to the postal workers is what is in store for every section of the workers as the Labour government goes all out to save the banks through robbing the workers using savage wage, benefit and pensions cuts.

The only solution for the working class is to get rid of this bankrupt capitalist system whose contradictions are recreating on a much bigger and more intense scale all of the features of the 1930s – extreme poverty in the midst of plenty in a situation of imperialist wars with rising class struggle at home, and revolutions.

That this is not just a British question can be seen by taking a glance at the US or at France where Sarkozy the new French president has raised the banner of class war against the workers, declaring that they will have to work much harder for less wages, and work much longer for a smaller pension.

The capitalist crisis is producing world revolution.

The workers of the main capitalist countries are now faced with overthrowing the capitalists, to go forward to a socialist society, as the only way to preserve their standard of living and their basic rights.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

ROYAL MAIL – THE WAY FORWARD TO VICTORY

http://wrp.org.uk/news/2521

THE announcement by the CWU of a programme of two 48-hour national strikes across all sections of Royal Mail, along with a programme of rolling strikes, is a huge blow against the Royal Mail management and its main supporter, the Brown government.

It is a big victory for the determination of the union’s members not to allow the destruction of their terms and conditions of service and the permanent disabling of their union.

This determination of the membership has exposed and undermined the CWU’s top leaders who have spent the last five weeks locked in secret talks with Royal Mail aimed at burying the dispute and forcing the Royal Mail plan onto the workers.

Royal Mail gleefully showed in their proposals document that CWU leaders, Hayes and Ward, had virtually agreed to the Royal Mail proposals, including complete flexibility of working, selling pension rights for new entrants and an industrial framework agreement that spelt the end for the union.

The intransigence of Royal Mail has been met with the intransigence of its workforce that is determined to fight.

Having said that, it is also clear that the policy of the leadership to force Royal Mail back to the negotiating table through 48-hour stoppages and a rolling programme of strike action, which they say will run up to Christmas, will not win the struggle.

Behind Royal Mail stands the Brown government and its determination that the economic crisis be dumped squarely on the backs of the working class.

For postal workers this means that speed-up, cuts in pay and conditions and total flexibility is not optional, as far as the government or management are concerned.

The scene is now set for an all-out confrontation between postal workers and management.

It’s clear that Royal Mail will not permit the union to dictate the pace of industrial action and they are quite likely to force a national stoppage and provoke a showdown.

Under these conditions, a leadership which still believes that compromise is possible and that strikes are only a means of securing more and more talks, is totally incapable of leading, and is a liability.

The issue before postal workers is not further talks, it is to wage an all-out struggle to defend their rights and jobs and to win that struggle.

A successful struggle can only be based on a recognition that this is not just an industrial dispute but a political struggle against this Brown government.

In this struggle, unity with other public sector workers who face the same attacks is absolutely essential.

There must be a programme of joint action through a public sector alliance to defend the whole of the public sector. This is already being called for by workers throughout the public sector. Now the demand must be that the union leaders make such an alliance.

A public sector alliance must take the lead in calling a general strike throughout the public sector and calling for support from the whole of the working class in a general strike that will remove this Brown government and replace it with a workers government that bases itself on socialist policies.

Central to the organisation of the general strike must be the building of Councils of Action in every locality to unite trade unionists and the entire community to defend the strikes and occupations that are essential parts of the struggle today.

Given that the leadership of the trade unions is hostile to any struggle that confronts the Brown government, the issue of replacing them is a vital question for the working class.

No army, no matter how strong, can win when it is led by leaders who are not only convinced that victory is impossible, but who are determined to prove it by working for defeat.

This is the situation the trade union movement faces today. These leaders must be removed and replaced with those who are prepared to do whatever is necessary, including bringing down this government. Only this will assure victory for postal workers and the entire working class.

[DirtyHarry]

I've my Red flag at the ready, TBT. Up with the workers , down with the capitalists.

[pickaname]

A public sector alliance must take the lead in calling a general strike throughout the public sector and calling for support from the whole of the working class in a general strike that will remove this Brown government and replace it with a workers government that bases itself on socialist policies.

what nonsense...never going to happen in a million years. lol..cloud cuckoo or what.

[Carla]

A public sector alliance must take the lead in calling a general strike throughout the public sector and calling for support from the whole of the working class in a general strike that will remove this Brown government and replace it with a workers government that bases itself on socialist policies.

what nonsense...never going to happen in a million years. lol..cloud cuckoo or what.

Never say never

[TrueBlueTerrier]

A public sector alliance must take the lead in calling a general strike throughout the public sector and calling for support from the whole of the working class in a general strike that will remove this Brown government and replace it with a workers government that bases itself on socialist policies.

what nonsense...never going to happen in a million years. lol..cloud cuckoo or what.

Never say never

There was a General Strike in 1926 which was not successful http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgeneral.htm
and one before in 1842 so if things come in cycles we are due one soon.

[Herodotus]

Nobody sane wants a return to the bad old days ..... but as us wise Greeks say ..... these bloated Mock Socialist Capitalist One-off-the-Wristers ..... are severly taking the pissoffolopolous!

[Carla]

Nobody sane wants a return to the bad old days ..... but as us wise Greeks say ..... these bloated Mock Socialist Capitalist One-off-the-Wristers ..... are severly taking the pissoffolopolous!

I'ts not about the return to the bad old day but to protect your rights that was hard fought for and won anyway it the management that are going back to the bad old days not us workers so lay of us then

[The Inspector]

Posted in error & deleted!

[IWW Fellow Worker]

I have to say, I agree with much of that article about Royal Mail. I'm going for a lie down now. I'm not used to agreeing with the WRP.

[catch]

The WRP are very, very dodgy - they were funded by Gaddafi in the '80s, sodl information about Iraqi dissidents to Saddam, major sexual abuse/rape scandal, the whole lot.

http://libcom.org/library/revolution-betrayed-wrp-iraq

[IWW Fellow Worker]

The WRP are very, very dodgy - they were funded by Gaddafi in the '80s, sodl information about Iraqi dissidents to Saddam, major sexual abuse/rape scandal, the whole lot.

http://libcom.org/library/revolution-betrayed-wrp-iraq

You're not wrong there mate! I remember all that stuff about Gerry Healey and co. Another thing I remember about them during the 70s was their reluctance to do a spot of bashing the fash on the grounds that thumping nazis was an "act of individual terrorism".

[kinmad4it]

It's almost as if they want us take up arms and march on CWU headquarters, then storm the houses of parliament carrying pitchforks and burning torches. They must live in a fantasy land!

[IWW Fellow Worker]

It's almost as if they want us take up arms and march on CWU headquarters, then storm the houses of parliament carrying pitchforks and burning torches. They must live in a fantasy land!

Not a bad fantasy though, just thinking about it. Swap the pitchforks for a few rifles and the burning torches for a couple of GPMG's and I'm up for it!

[dvbuk55]

It's almost as if they want us take up arms and march on CWU headquarters, then storm the houses of parliament carrying pitchforks and burning torches. They must live in a fantasy land!

Not a bad fantasy though, just thinking about it. Swap the pitchforks for a few rifles and the burning torches for a couple of GPMG's and I'm up for it!

Don't think they use gympies now - I might be wrong though - there is a version of the SA80 used as a LMG and also a Minimi. I had to return for training when the new SA80 came in - though I was 42 or 43 at the time.

It's the sort of fantasy that is a reality in lots of third world countries - but it won't happen here.