Liverpool: Assault on All Fronts Against the Workers

For some months Liverpool has been the centre of attention while politicians of the various Bourgeois parties, ably assisted by the Media, have launched concerted attacks against the working class. And a pleasurable time has been had by all of the ruling class because it has been able to get away with it. The working class has been unable to really respond precisely because of the so-called left-wing groups, along with unionised sectionalism, who have channelled any proletarian responses into the very safe areas of parliamentary and municipal politics. Tied up in such a fashion the working class has become a football to be kicked about by any section of the ruling class who cared to have a go.

The decline of the British economy, particularly its large-scale manufacturing base, has hit initially the northern areas in the last two decades. After that it was the turn of the Midlands, which had been built upon the manufacture of consumer goods. There had been some concern about these developments amongst the ruling class, but all this was ignored when the Thatcher government came to office in 1979. Filled with the sort of arrogance that only stupidity and ignorance can give, the New Right (who for some inexplicable reason characterised themselves as “radical” (?), and even – wait for it – “libertarian”!) wants society to re-fashioned in their own image. Swept away would be the dependency of making things, which sounds oh-so terribly tedious, the new emphasis would be on service industries, banking, stock markets, Shopping Malls, etc. All those frightful and boring regulations would be ignored, the markets would be freed and so everybody who cares to take the opportunities can be rich! At this they were egged on by certain advocates of free markets which we would be justified in calling the Bonehead school of economics, as exemplified by the likes of the Adam Smith Institute, followers of Milton Friedman, etc. For them it would be one long party-party, with money being generated from who knows where, and who cares anyway. But as sure as night follows day, crisis follows boom, Markets for goods dry up, Commodity Markets go berserk, Property prices tend to fall through the floor, Banks and Building Societies end up with problems, money vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and everything turns sour. The much vaunted Market System turns out to be a joke – and the Western capitalists lecture their Russian brothers on how to run things?

The crisis over the last couple of years has hit the South of England because it was virtually the only area to benefit from the consumer-led boom of 1988. The Northern cities hardly noticed this boom and so have not really felt much of the present recession, as it has experienced one long decline in economic fortunes. Liverpool has been a sharp example of this tendency: from being characterised as the Gateway to Empire it has now been called the Naples of the North. With the decline of manufacturing industries the only large employers of labour tend to be in the Public Sector. These have come to seen by some parts of the bourgeoisieas refuges for workers so they can have some sort of security of employment while the wild gales of economic crises rampage through the private sectors. Infuriated by this ignoring of the slump in the south (besides some quiet nods of satisfaction that at least some of the middle class “professionals” are experiencing what whole sections of the working class has been through) this attitude of the working class had to be challenged. If they are not frightened by the consequences of crises and economic slumps, then the workers may start to get ideas above their station in society!

Attacks Against Local Council workers

With the decline of large-scale and consumer manufacturing the largest sectors of workers are now mainly in the public sector, employed by the likes of Local Government and the Health Service. The attention of the state and Government has been steadily towards these public sector workers, particularly with many other industries having been transferred to the private sector. The shake-ups in the public sectors, through cuts on manning levels and increased exploitation, have also the intent on creating shake-outs whereby “surplus” workers will be made unemployed. The Tories are striving to create equity in exploitation and unemployment between the public and private sectors.

The strategy for the attacks against the public sector has been through reduction in funding requiring the particular sectors to cut down on staff. In this way the Government transmits the consequence of the crisis in the economy directly into publicly funded concerns. Often it is covered by that wonderfully bland phrase “natural wastage” whereby growing unemployment and attacks on working conditions is masked by not taking on staff when people leave, retire, etc. This is often one of the trade union’s preferred options, but this usually means that others have to rot on the dole, in the case of the young and/or members of ethnic minorities, never having any prospects of work. But for the trade union officials at least they appear to keep their hands clean. They are not confronted with angry members with redundancy notices – the growing ranks of the unemployed are comfortably faceless, and not likely to be members of their union / branch / industry anyway.

With regards to Local Councils the way of controlling public expenditure has been in rate-capping whereby for each amount they go over fixed amounts in Local Rates, now Community Charge, the Government reduces the amount it pays to that Council by a much greater sum. The penalties inflicted can be quite significant. But all the same the Government will expect all the services, and any new ones Parliament may decree, to be provided by the Local Councils within the local tax rates recommended by the state. The more Local Councils go over the Rates / Poll Tax specified by the Tories the greater the problems in local services. This is the process which leads to all the attacks against the municipal workers. The tighter the financial screws turned by the Government the more the Local Councils intensify the attacks on their workers. And the attacks often fall upon the older workers, those prone to sickness, departments they incite the public against, etc., all standard tactics of bosses, whether private or public employers.

The Attack of the “Moderates”

The different varieties of Left blocs of Labour Councillors (whether called ‘Militant’, Broad Left or anything else) have been replaced by a right-wing leadership which for some reason or other is called “moderate”. Intimidation and threats of violence against themselves was the accusation of the “moderates” to all and sundry. This “moderate” wing asserts itself as the old-fashioned “responsible” type of Labour Party that is well-known and loved (particularly by the bourgeoisie) for its track-record of attacking the working class. However, there is certainly nothing moderate about the way they have been attacking their own workers. This “moderate” wing comes from some who replaced disqualified Councillors, thrown out some years ago for failing to set a legal budget in time, others appointed to replace purged left-wing Councillors, all loyal to the national leadership of Neil Kinnock. Having despaired of many years of illegal budgets, conflicts with the Government, the “moderates” decided to fix a budget that would be within Whitehall’s guide-lines, and establish a good working relationship with the Government.

In order to do this “balancing of the books” redundancies of up to a thousand were mentioned. Not unnaturally many Council workers were outraged at the prospects of losing their jobs. Local Councils were never notorious for paying high wages (bonus schemes had to be worked to get decent wages in many departments) but at least many Council workers could look forward to virtually a job for life. All this is now under threat. Campaigns, threats of strikes, some limited occupations, were the response of many of the workers. Action undertaken by key workers, such as the Finance Dept., rather than large-scale mobilisation of Council workers, was a way local trade union leaders hoped would affect the functioning of the City Council without hurting the workers’ wage packets too much. In reality it has only served to isolate sections of workers, breed fear and suspicion on which the Council bosses could then intensify their attacks.

Privatisation of some services, such as refuse collection, has been proposed as one of the attacks on the organisation of the Council workers. If the Council can’t carry out its “reorganisation” of the workers, by cuts in staff and increases in work-loads, let some private employer do it, and make money as well. In this way the French- owned Company Onyx has been handed the work on a plate. Many of the Council workers will be taken on by Onyx and the rest will be either re-deployed to other work if they can’t be made redundant. So far it seems as if the Council hasn’t been able to get away with redundancies, at least on paper. But there are two other processes going on. The first one is “voluntary” redundancy when some workers have had enough and volunteer for redundancy, many old and sick, who will have been under increasing pressure over the last few months. The Council bosses have tended to “target” these workers as ones they want to get shut of. The local trade union leaders have not objected to this form of job loss. After all many of these same branch officials had instituted a bar to recruitment of workers who had “taken the money”, “sold their jobs” and so had effectively operated a system of black-listing fellow workers. Will they campaign in the same way and follow these workers around who take voluntary redundancy and get them barred in the same way as they have barred others from working for the Council? The other one is in the “freezing” of recruitment of new workers, posts vacated are not filled and so unemployed stay unemployed. But more than that, a far more insidious tactic is being used. If anybody wants better pay rates or an increase in hours (the City employs a lot of part-time workers as it is cheaper that way for a whole number of technical reasons) the money has to be found from existing budgets. Workers in some departments, and outside funded projects, have to agree to cuts (including job losses), in order to pay for them. No wonder that a real fighting alliance amongst the workers hasn’t been achieved.

The “moderates” have opened up the offensive against members of their own party with the intention of getting rid of anyone who doesn’t agree with these attacks. Various so-called left-wing tendencies, who have been trying to create the Labour Party into something it has never been, i.e. a working class party, are in the process of being expelled. If they had any sense they wouldn’t have been in the Labour Party in the first place. The Labour Party hasn’t been a working class party (if ever) since the end of the First World War. Since then it has been a bastion of capitalism and an essential part of the whole defensive network of existing society. Indeed those who have confined their arguments with the “moderates” on an electoral plane, on the basis of being Broad Left or even “Real” Labour, have only strengthened the right-wingers. Indeed the Walton By-Election recently held, the consequence of the death of the sitting MP Eric Heffer, served only to provide a further weapon in the attacks against the Council workers at a potentially significant moment in the struggle. A rival candidate, Lesley Mahmood, referred to as standing as “Real Labour”, claimed to continue in the traditions of the former MP Heffer. Heffer, proclaiming a left-wing tradition, had declared that the Labour Party should be a “Broad Church”, able to encompass all tendencies. Presumably there would be a place for anyone, such as the “moderates”, who wanted to attack the workers. Opposition to expulsions would cover presumably the most right-wing opportunists. However, the Labour leadership doesn’t agree to this “Broad Church” concept. The case of the Birkenhead MP Frank Field is a case in point. This rightwing MP succeeded in infuriating many Birkenhead Labour Party members because of his views. The local Party tried to replace him with a local trade union official. The ousted MP complained to all and sundry and eventually a new ballot of the Birkenhead Party took place, at which Field just scraped in. Arguments continued, and in the end the National Labour leadership decided it preferred the rightwing MP so much it shut down the entire Birkenhead Party to prevent any further attempts at deselection.

The conflict between two rival Labour candidates (“Real” and Official) gave an opportunity for another concerted attack on Council employees. The “moderates” went on to blame the Council workers for all the financial problems of the City. Mounds of uncollected waste on the streets was shown as a consequence of not having “responsible” attitudes to the management of the City. Workers, as residents of the City, were turned against workers, who are employees of the Council. An atmosphere of near hysteria was created in order to further intimidate Council workers, while leftists and rightists were arguing who were and who weren’t the real Labour Party. In all this the issues facing workers, whether Council workers, residents, Poll Tax payers (or non-payers) was lost in a quagmire of Parliamentary abuse and mud-slinging. Workers facing redundancies were urged to vote in an election which could not possibly affect their situation. Only the class struggle could have turned round the situation. Poll Tax non-payers could have been mobilised to strengthen picket lines (instead of mere hot-air), a real alliance could have been forged between different sections of workers, bridging the divide between public and private sector industries, but none of this was done. While people still ramble on about “working within the Labour Party”, as if that is the road to the “masses”, enormous confusion and disorientation is sown within the working class, that is the real working class which exists outside the Labour Part