UNIONS GET ATTENTION

A turn-up for the books. Usually the ‘business’ pages cover corporate fortunes. There’s some input from the ‘industrial relations editor’ about the workers, but it’s a bosses-eye view of the economy.

Today, for some reason, the Financial page in the Guardian is all union-oriented. The three stories on page 26 are: ‘Union seeks tax on private equity to refund pension losses’; ‘Workers of the world unite over ABN‘; and ‘Post union expects “yes” to strike‘.

In reverse order, the stories are about a strike ballot by the Communications Workers Union – over pay and conditions (in the context of Royal Mail’s ‘modernization’ programme); an international (Belgian-Brazilian-British-Dutch-Greek-Italian-Spanish-Panamanian-Swiss) trade union meeting to fight the job cuts expected as a result of the takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro by Barclays Bank; and the call by the leader of the GMB union, Paul Kenny, for windfall taxes on private equity to pay for collapsed occupational pension schemes.

‘Private equity’ here means a group of rich investors (and maybe pension funds) gaining control of a publicly listed company and ‘taking it private’ (withdrawing it from the stock market and therefore from public scrutiny) in order, very often, to shake some short-term profits from the business – perhaps by selling it on (sometimes in pieces).

The GMB has managed to get some information on only 21 of 96 insolvent (bankrupt) pension funds with liabilities of just under £2bn.

The GMB reports one story of a pension fund collapse:

‘In one case, LDV Vans in Birmingham, researchers point out went into administration for just 24 hours, enabling it to shed some £234m of liabilities – including a pension deficit of £28m for 1,200 employees. The company has now been sold on by its new owners, to a Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, owner of Basic Elements Group.’

THE NEW COLD WAR

The Guardian, Telegraph and Times all had front page Putin stories today.

The Times interviewed Putin:

‘In an exclusive interview with The Times, the Russian leader says: “It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the US is located in Europe and will be threatening us, we will have to respond.

‘ “This system of missile defence on one side and the absence of this system on the other . . . increases the possibility of unleashing a nuclear conflict.”

‘Russia has been alarmed at America’s plans to install a network of defences in Eastern Europe to shoot down incoming missiles it fears that Iran might launch.

‘Mr Putin expressed scepticism of this motive, arguing that “There are no such missiles – Iran does not have missiles with the range”. The US was insisting, he said, that the defence system was to be “installed for the protection from something that does not exist. Is it not sort of funny? It would be funny if it were not so sad.”

‘He speculated that the US’s real motive was to provoke Russia’s retaliation and so “to avoid further closeness of Russia and Europe”.’

The Guardian has an important part of Putin’s remarks not otherwise found on the front pages:

‘ “We are being told the anti-missile defence system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn’t it seem funny to you?” Mr Putin said. “The strategic balance in the world is being upset and in order to restore this balance without creating an anti-missile defence on our territory, we will be creating a system of countering that anti-missile system.” ‘

No mention in any of these stories of the observation of Alexander Pikayev, ‘an arms control expert and senior analyst at the Moscow-based Institute for World Economy and International Relations’, recorded in the Guardian a few days ago:

Pikayev ‘said the development of the missile had probably been inevitable after the Bush administration unilaterally withdrew from the Soviet-era anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002, preventing the Start-II treaty from coming into force. The treaty banned missiles with multiple warheads.’

IRAQ: WITHDRAWAL?

The FT has the best story on this topic today:

‘British troop numbers in Iraq will be reduced to 2,000 or fewer by the end of this year, according to military analysts and serving and former officers.

‘The reduction in numbers will be made as Gordon Brown tries to extract the UK from a military campaign associated with his predecessor, Tony Blair. The Ministry of Defence says no such decision has been made and troop reductions will be made only when conditions are right.

‘During the mid-year troop rotation, which will be completed next month, Britain is moving in about 5,500 troops to replace the roughly 7,100 there earlier this year. The next big reduction could come during the next rotation at the end of the year.

‘ “I’ll be very surprised if there are more than 2,000 British troops in Iraq by the end of this year,” Paul Rogers, a professor at Bradford University’s department of peace studies, told a conference organised by the Demos think-tank last week. He said there might be onlya handful there in ayear’s time.

‘The assessment is supported by retired and serving officers. “I think it would be less than 2,000 if they can get away with it,” said Nick Clissitt, a retired brigadier and director of the Minerva Advisory Group, a consultancy specialising in crisis management and institutional reform. “The main constraint is the transatlantic relationship,” he said.

‘One practical question would be whether UK forces would remain to guard the critical routes from Kuwait into central Iraq used to supply US forces, analysts said. Convoys using this route were usually guarded by private security companies but military support would be needed from time to time. These operations could be mounted from Basra airport, the most secure base in southern Iraq, to which the remaining UK forces are expected to withdraw over coming months.

‘A former US defence official, still in regular contact with Iraq, said UK troop reductions carried risks to the US campaign in Iraq.

‘Analysts said the US would want the UK to retain personnel in significant numbers, so as to retain the appearance of a coalition and not to trigger the departure of its other mem-bers, particularly Poland, the third largest military provider.’

The true, political role, of the British presence in southern Iraq, laid bare.