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Pensioners and postal workers rally for Charter

William Benzies — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:35:45 +0000

The scale of the economic crisis, which has seen rising prices and attacks on workers’ living standards, is leading to increased support for the People Before Profit Charter.

The charter puts forward ten demands to improve the lives of working people. Supporters of the charter protested outside the building where Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced £992 million profits last week.

They demanded a windfall tax on the company. The protest received widespread media coverage, with pictures of it on the front page of the London Paper, and the Morning Star. It even appeared in the Sun.

A number of postal workers signed the charter at a protest on Monday of this week (see page 14) to support of three Bristol CWU trade union activists who are facing victimisation.

Signatories included: Dave Ward, the deputy general secretary (postal) of the CWU communications union; David Wilshire, branch secretary of Bristol CWU; and Paula Franklin, one of three victimised activists.

With the energy giants hiking their fuel prices massively, these are also worrying times for old age pensioners.

There are currently 2.1 million pensioners living in poverty, up from 1.8 million last year. The increasing pressure on their pension will throw many more into poverty.

The plight of pensioners has got increasingly worse since Margaret Thatcher cut the link between pensions and wages in 1980. This means the basic state pension is just £90.70 a week.

Trade unions and campaigners are demanding that the basic pension rate be increased to £124.05 a week.

The charter’s calls for the abolition of taxes on fuel and energy for old people and the poor, and for the link between wages and pensions to be re-established.

This demand is winning support for the charter among pensioners, such as Gordon McLennan, a pensioner activist in Lambeth, south London, and former general secretary of the Communist Party.

Gordon told Socialist Worker, “I agree with the general proposals of the charter, but I am particularly interested in the point about the fight for higher pensions and the abolition of tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor.

“There are plenty of reasons for pensioners to back the charter. We have the scandal where electricity and gas prices are going up, sometimes at the rate of 40 percent.

“We have a situation where pensioners are being increasingly forced into a corner, both in society and economically.

“There is no response to this from present day politicians. We are being ignored. The local council’s newspaper doesn’t have a word about elderly people in it.

“The government is increasing our winter fuel allowance by £100 when gas and electricity bills are going up by a lot more. Some 300,000 pensioners have dropped into poverty in the last year.

“The kind of feeling that pensioners have about all this must be built up to have a massive impact on 22 October.

“That’s when we will lobby parliament to demand a decent state pension and to celebrate 100 years of the state pension.”

People Before Profit Charter strikes a chord across the picket lines

JamieSW — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:41:02 +0000

The cost of food, petrol and fuel is going through the roof, with gas bills predicted to hit £1,000 a year in coming years. Meanwhile workers are being told they have to swallow pay cuts in real terms.

Yet at the same time chief executives at the BBC and Network Rail are getting bonuses and pay rises of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

All this has underlined the urgency of the People Before Profit Charter, which lays out ten demands to defend workers’ living standards in the face of mounting economic crisis.

Magnificent

Hundreds of people have signed up to the charter since its recent launch, including many involved in last week’s magnificent strikes by local government and Argos workers

“I visited the picket line at Argos’s Bridgwater depot last week,” reports Simon from Bristol. “Some 37 pickets signed the charter.”

Many people reported great enthusiasm for the People Before Profit Charter from council workers’ picket lines on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

The week before some 17 striking workers at the British Museum signed up to the charter. Others signing it include Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ journalists’ union.

The People Before Profit Charter has been launched by trade unionists, housing campaigners, students and pensioners as a response to attempts by bosses and government ministers to make workers pay for their economic crisis.

The charter’s ten points put forward proposals on a number of issues that would improve the lives of millions of people.

These include decent pay rises, taxing corporations, improving workers’ rights, opposing privatisation, building council homes, opposing racism and war, improving pensions, abolishing tuition fees and increasing the minimum wage

Supporters of the charter are now calling on people to raise support for it in their local union branch, pensioners’ group, student union, housing group and other campaigns.

People should also continue to ask their workmates, neighbours and friends to sign up to the charter. The level of support already garnered shows how deep the anger and concerns of working people go.

The People Before Profit Charter can help to mobilise the growing resistance to the attacks on workers – and it can help provide a left wing answer to the current crisis and halt the right in its tracks. Put your name to it, if you haven’t already.

Sign up to these demands

Wage increases no lower than the rate of inflation as given by the Retail Price Index. No to the government’s 2 percent pay limit.
Increase tax on big companies. Introduce a windfall tax on corporation superprofits, especially those of the oil companies.
Repeal the Tory anti-union laws. Support the Trade Union Freedom Bill.
Unsold houses and flats should be taken over by local councils to ease the housing crisis. No house repossessions. For an emergency programme of council house building.
Stop the privatisation of public services. Free and equal health and education services available to all.
End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and use the money to expand public services. Stop the erosion of civil liberties.
Abolish tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor. Re-establish the link between wages and pensions.
No to racism. No to the British National Party. No scapegoating of immigrants.
Reintroduce grants and abolish tuition fees for students.
Increase the minimum wage to £8.00 an hour.

Many workers and trade unionists are now engaged in strikes and protests to defend their pay, jobs and services.

We pledge ourselves to support their action and to support the campaigns that are dedicated to protecting working people, including

Unite Against Fascism
Public Services not Private Profit
Defend Council Housing
Stop the War Coalition
Keep Our NHS Public

Recent signatories include:

Tony Benn, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, Jeremy Corbyn MP, POA general secretary Brian Caton, PCS vice president Sue Bond, CWU vice president Jane Loftus, Bfawu general secretary Joe Marino, John Pilger, chair of FBU South Wales brigade Cerith Griffiths, PCS DWP group executive member Helen Flanagan, vice chair of PCS Wales committee Marianne Owens, Unison Wales youth forum chair Chris Daw, PCS rep Cardiff magistrates court Liz Taylor, Unison rep in Vale of Glamorgan Karen Tyre, Lambeth Unison rep Jon Rogers, Stop the War Coalition national convenor Lindsey German, former leader of Lambeth council Ted Knight, Lambeth college UCU branch secretary Susan McDowell, Croydon Unison branch secretary Malcolm Campbell, Lambeth Unison convenor for finance and resources Chester Danners, Newham Unison branch secretary Irene Stacey, PCS Defra London branch organiser Niaz Faiz, Socialist Worker editor Chris Bambery, senior regional Unite industrial organiser Livie Reid, Argos Unite reps Nigel Jones and Joely Bendall, Unite convenor for Bristol council Steve Panes

All signatories are in a personal capacity

Iraq: New US plan for total control

Ellie Keen — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

George Bush is ending the pretence that Iraq is a “democratic state”. He is imposing new “security accords” that will strip the country of its sovereignty and allow it to be used as a platform to launch more wars.

This is the thrust of a secret treaty – known as the Status of Forces Agreement – that is being imposed on the country.

Even the puppet Iraqi parliament and its pro-occupation allies have found it difficult to stomach.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets last week as the provisions in the “accords” were leaked to the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.

Bush wants to establish 400 permanent military installations, including bases near the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian borders.

According to one pro-US Kurdish leader these bases will “exist for the next 15 or 20 years”.

Included in the treaty is the right for the US to launch wars on “third countries” from Iraqi soil.

This is a direct threat against Iraq’s neighbours and another step towards a war on Iran.

But for many Iraqis, the biggest insult in the new treaty is that all US troops, citizens and mercenaries – the so-called contractors – will be immune from Iraqi law.

Under these terms, occupation forces can use deadly force under any conditions, giving them a green light to arrest, imprison or kill any Iraqi with no fear of prosecution or regard for the country’s institutions.

Also included in the treaty is a provision that all deals and undertakings for reconstruction contracts negotiated since the occupation began will become null and void. This clears the way for a US monopoly over the economy.

The US previously agreed to share these contracts with Iraqi firms in an attempt to draw them into co-operating with the occupation. But this strategy failed to quell resistance to the occupation. So now the US wants unlimited access to, and control over, the country’s wealth.

Britain and the US repeatedly said in the run-up to the invasion that they would respect Iraq’s sovereignty, end repression and build a democracy. Now they no longer bother with that lie.

But as before, the US has seriously miscalculated.

A broad spectrum of Iraqis have condemned the deal, which is due to be signed by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki before the end of July.

Rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has led three uprisings against the occupation, denounced the accords as “a project of humiliation”.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the mouthpiece of the mainly Sunni Muslim sections of the resistance, said the deal would pave the way for total “military, economic and cultural domination” of the country.

Referendum

Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s vice‑president and a stalwart of the occupation, said the country’s sovereignty is a “red line” which the US is attempting to cross.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest Shia Muslim authority in Iraq, is demanding a popular referendum. He said he would not allow Iraq to sign such an accord “as long as he was alive”.

Even Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the pro-US Badr Brigades, has objected.

Faced with this growing opposition, US ambassador Ryan Crocker threatened to strip Iraq’s puppet regime of any authority if it refused to rubber stamp the accords.

The latest US plan for Iraq confirms the worst fears of the anti-war movement in the run‑up to the invasion.

We warned then that behind the talk of “humanitarian intervention” and “democracy” lay a plan for total subjugation and endless war.

These accords show how that plan can become a reality.

The fight is still on to stop US and British warmongering in the Middle East and around the world. For this reason we have to turn out in massive numbers to protest against George Bush’s visit to Britain on 15 June.

This is what the US calls Justice

Ellie Keen — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:49:41 +0000

The US’s decision to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo Bay detainees in connection with 9/11 is a crime against the very idea of justice.

The six will face a tribunal where military personnel will act as judges. This won’t be a “fair trial” – it will be a show trial, using evidence obtained through torture to send the men to their deaths.

Civil liberties campaigners in Britain have denounced the decision – and warned that the British and Spanish governments are also complicit with human rights violations associated with the “war on terror”.

Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, who spent three years in US custody, highlighted the US’s routine use of torture by drowning, known as “waterboarding”.

He told Socialist Worker, “Five of the six people they’ve charged were brought into Guantanamo only last year. They just materialised from secret locations whose existence is denied by the US government.

“The US military accepts that it uses waterboarding, but claims this isn’t torture – despite the fact that when the technique was used during the Spanish Inquisition it was called ‘torture with water’. They’re denying it’s torture in order to pretend they have valid confessions.”

Moazzam notes that the announcement of the charges against the men comes at a time when campaigning against the torture camp is reaching a peak.

“We’re in a period where the whole nature of Guantanamo is being questioned by everyone from former president Jimmy Carter to the US supreme court.

“They’re in a political quagmire, and there’s pressure to shut it down because there’s too much heat. These charges are intended as some kind of ‘legacy’ for George Bush – he wants to say, ‘We got them in the end’.”

On Thursday of this week two British residents who were recently released from Guantanamo – Omar Deghayes and Jamil el-Banna – will appear before a magistrates court for an extradition hearing to Spain.

“Throughout the time these men were in Guantanamo Bay they were never designated for trial,” said Moazzam.

“Now the moment they are reunited with their families, they could be sent off to Spain. Once they are in Spain they could be charged with something that it’s much easier to get a conviction for, or even shipped off to another torture camp in Libya or Jordan.”

Jackie Chase from the Save Omar campaign told Socialist Worker, “Omar and Jamil have been wrongfully detained, obscenely tortured and treated despicably for over five years by the US at Guantanamo and other secret prisons.

“Omar has many medical issues, including an eye blinded by the guards at Guantanamo. It’s time to leave these men alone and let them return to some semblance of a normal life.”

Refugees abandoned on our doorstep

JamieSW — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:35:18 +0000

Gordon Brown’s government is complicit in the misery of tens of thousands of refugees attempting to flee the “war on terror”. Many of these “non-people” are trapped in the French port town of Calais. They risk their lives trying to enter Britain.

Socialist Worker visited Calais and spoke to refugees. They were from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea. We found Kurds fleeing sectarian and ethnic hatred and educated women forced out of Eritrea as the “war on terror” washed up on their shores. We met Palestinians who have no country to return to, Africans living in fear of French police and racist gangs, Iraqis fleeing sectarian killers. Among their number was a 14 year old Afghan boy who had travelled across seven countries looking for some kind of future.

According to the United Nations there are “8.4 million refugees and as many as 23.7 million uprooted civilians in their own countries”. The vast majority of these refugees wander from country to country – only to find doors slamming in their face everywhere they go. There are four million refugees from Iraq alone – driven from their homes by the US and British invasion and the death squads that followed in its wake.

This year the US has accepted a paltry 7,000 refugees from Iraq – cherrypicking the educated and those with money. In 2006 Britain accepted only 950 Iraqi refugees. Over 90 percent of applications are refused.

Britain has a moral duty to care for the victims of the war this government helped to unleash. Instead Brown has found it easy to hide behind cheap tabloid headlines.

Refugees are denounced as “scroungers” and treated as criminals and outcasts in “fortress Europe”. In 2002 the British government forced the closure of the Red Cross shelter in Sangatte outside Calais. They hoped that by making life for these refugees unbearable they would “disappear”.

Instead we found them living in woods, under bridges or in abandoned factories. Many were ill and hungry, fighting each other for meagre resources as the winter closes in.

Recent attempts by the council in Calais to open a day centre for refugees were scotched by the British government following a media frenzy that branded it “Sangatte II”.

Many of the refugees told us that even this precarious life as a refugee is better than random death back home. They are demanding Britain take some responsibility for their fate. “Let them just come and see the conditions we live in,” one Iraqi told us.

Last week 51 refugees drowned as they attempted to cross the Aegean Sea into Turkey. This winter an unknown number in Calais will perish and be buried in nameless graves. They are victims of government policy, official indifference and moral cowardice.

Soldiers in Silent Revolt in Iraq

Ellie Keen — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:44:27 +0000

British and US troops are turning away from confronting the Iraqi resistance – despite the rhetoric from Gordon Brown and George Bush that they are “winning” the war.

Revelations from both British and US troops show that morale has plummeted and that soldiers are avoiding all encounters with anti-occupation forces.

A senior British commander told the Sunday Telegraph that since they withdrew from Basra this summer they have not once returned to the city. They patrol around their base at the airport, with the occasional forays to the Iranian border.

He admitted that the military and the resistance have struck a deal not to attack each other. The oil rich southern Iraqi city is now in the hands of rival resistance organisations.

One senior British officer said, “We are tired of firing at people. We would prefer to find a political accommodation.”

Other soldiers said they saw little point in fighting on. One captain admitted, “If we went into the city every night, we would still be doing it in ten years’ time.

“There is nothing the military can do any more without the backing of politicians, and no politician wants to touch Iraq with a barge pole. Having the military out here without political backing is pointless.”

If the British military is “officially” pulling back from the war, US troops are doing so unofficially.

In an echo of the Vietnam War, US troops told independent journalist Dahr Jamail that they run fake patrols and send false reports as part of a strategy of “search and avoid”.

One soldier, who had recently returned from Iraq, admitted, “Morale was incredibly low. Most men in my platoon in Iraq were just in from combat tours in Afghanistan.

“We were hit by so many roadside bombs we became incredibly demoralised, so we decided the only way we wouldn’t be blown up was to avoid driving around all the time.

“So we would go find an open field and park. Then we would call our base every hour to tell them we were searching for weapons caches in the fields and doing weapons patrols and everything was going fine.

“All our enlisted people became very disenchanted with our chain of command.”

Another soldier said, “We’d go to the end of our patrol route and set up on top of a bridge and use it as an over-watch position. We would just sit with our binoculars and observe rather than sweep. We’d call in radio checks every hour and say we were doing sweeps.”

“It was a common tactic, a lot of people did that. We’d just hang out, listen to music, smoke cigarettes and pretend.”

A third soldier told Jamail, “One of my buddies is in Baghdad right now and we email all the time. He just told me that nearly each day they pull into a parking lot, drink soda, and shoot at the cans.

“They pay Iraqi kids to bring them things and spread the word that they are not doing anything and to please just leave them alone.”