BLAIR has proudly boasted that under his government Britain still has some of the most repressive union laws in the Western world, and said that he wants Britain to be "the best place for business in the world".
Any hopes that a Labour government with a majority of 180 would scrap Thatcher's anti-union laws - which stacked the odds so heavily in favour of employers and against workers - were ill-founded. As the recent Tube strike showed, Labour's feeble "Fairness at Work" legislation not only failed to undo the damage done by the Tories, but actually introduced even more restrictions on industrial action. The whip hand remains with the employers, with unions constantly vulnerable to legal challenge over ballots and barred from "secondary" action in support of other unions in dispute.
Deregulation, short term contracts, cowboy firms and anti-union bosses backed up by anti-union laws left over from the Thatcher government mean that millions of workers face insecurity and harassment at work. We are clear - we side with the workers, not with the bosses hoping to keep their wages and conditions as low as they can get away with. We side with workers who fight to improve their pay and conditions, and with their right to organise and join trade unions. Unfortunately New Labour has come out consistently on the side of the employers - and against every strike that has taken place or been threatened. That's why a number of unions have already begun a debate over their future links with a party that no longer even pretends to support their interests.
The Socialist Alliance argues for members of unions affiliated to the Labour Party to demand an accounting of the value for money of their multi-million pound donations. We argue for a change in union rules to allow members to decide democratically whether to fund alternative candidates - candidates who support and fight for the union's policies.
The Socialist Alliance wants to see a comprehensive improvement in our rights at work:
- Full employment rights for all workers from day one - end the casualisation of work.
- For a minimum wage of �7.40 per hour - the European Union Decency Threshold - with no exemptions.
- For the right to join a union and the automatic right to union recognition in all workplaces.
- Repeal all the anti-union laws, and support all workers who defy them and take action in defence of jobs, pay and conditions.
- Establish the right to strike, picket effectively and take solidarity (secondary) action free from the threat of injunctions and crippling financial penalties.
- Trade unionists should have the right to hold meetings during working hours.
- Establish an offence of corporate manslaughter for deaths at work.
- Increase penalties for all health and safety offences - including imprisonment of responsible directors.
- Increase protection for whistle-blowers, and ban victimisation of trade union or health and safety representatives.
- Give employment tribunals the power to reinstate victimised workers.
- Health and safety representatives should have the power to stop work with dangerous machinery, chemicals and processes, and to issue provisional improvement notices requiring remedial action.
- Trade unions should have the right to appoint "roving" health and safety representatives to inspect all workplaces - and to liaise directly with Health and Safety Executive inspectors.
- Increase funds to the Health and Safety Executive, and guarantee its independence from employers.
- For unions to be democratically controlled by members - officials to be regularly elected, accountable, and to receive the average wage of workers they represent.
- Support internationally co-ordinated campaigns to confront the power of multinational corporations.
Extend the Welfare State to End Poverty
UNDER New Labour British pensioners remain among the poorest in Europe. Gordon Brown's 73p increase - in a time of economic growth and fiscal surpluses - was fresh insult added to longstanding injury. Blair claims that we "cannot afford" to restore the link between pensions and earnings, but at the same time boasts that Britain is the fourth richest economy in the world. The real reason for short changing pensioners - and for underfunding social security, health, education and social services - is that British employers and the rich pay lower taxes and National Insurance than in other European Union countries.
The Socialist Alliance says that a strong and fair welfare state must be founded on a progressive tax system, raising direct taxes on income from those best able to pay. That's why we say that there must be an increase in the taxes paid by big business and the rich, and why we demand that the ceiling on National Insurance contributions for high earners should be scrapped - a measure that would on its own yield up to �5 billion a year - so that they pay a fair share of society's costs.
Behind New Labour's rhetoric about "getting Britain back to work" lies a relentless attack on every aspect of the welfare and benefit system. In their second term Blair and Brown plan to increase "workfare" measures, along with the intimidation and harassment of claimants. The Socialist Alliance rejects this approach. We say the welfare system needs to be rebuilt.
- The Socialist Alliance demands that the state pension be set at a level of �150 a week for a single person and �300 for a married couple for the year 2001-02. These pension rates should then be increased in line with wages or prices, whichever is higher. The Minimum Income Guarantee should be converted into non means tested universal benefits, paid from direct taxation without loss of entitlement.
- As a minimum, the Socialist Alliance will set about raising the income of every child and adult above the poverty line as an immediate priority. The poverty line will be redefined to ensure it reflects the income needed to afford a decent standard of living. Benefits will then rise, as a minimum, in line with wages or prices, whichever is higher.
- No means testing of benefits or pensions - universal benefits that end up in the pockets of the rich will be reclaimed through progressive taxation.
- Free residential and nursing care for the elderly and the disabled - end the scandal of the private care industries.
- Scrap the Jobseeker's Allowance and "Welfare to Work," and restore Unemployment Benefit.
- Restore benefit rights and housing benefits to 16 and 17 year olds and students.
- Restore incapacity benefit.
- The scandal of the cash-limited Tory "Social Fund", which refused loans to over 360,000 poor families last year, must be ended. Scrap the scheme, and restore special needs grants.
- Bring all privatised benefits agencies back into public ownership.
- Full benefits for all prevented from working by childcare, disability or injury.
- Provide free high quality childcare and state nurseries with flexible opening hours to suit working parents.
- Increase child and maternity benefits, guarantee adequate paid maternity and paternity leave, and restore full benefits to single parents.
- Since the Tories destroyed the school meals service a million children living in poverty do not have access to a free school meal - for many the main meal of the day. We say all children should have free nutritional breakfast and lunch at school.
- Ensure full employment by establishing a maximum 35-hour week with no loss of pay.
- A minimum wage equivalent to the European Decency Threshold - currently �7.40 an hour.
- Scrap New Labour's vicious voucher system for refugees and asylum seekers, which forces them to eke out an existence on just 70 percent of official benefit levels.
NHS: Health for Patients, Not Profit
THE NHS is not safe in either Tory or Labour hands. Both have opened it up to the private sector. Both have run down patient services and staffing levels. Both have underfunded it. Both are happy to see precious resources gobbled up by the profit-hungry multinational drugs and health supply companies, as well as private health companies such as BUPA. The Socialist Alliance has policies for a first rate health service free to all:
- Stop and reverse the �7 billion worth of hospital schemes in the NHS to be funded through the Private Finance Initiative, which will leave the public sector in hock to banks, developers and contractors for the next 30 years. Full Treasury funding for the NHS to take over the schemes under way, and for a massive programme of building new publicly-owned hospitals, community hospitals, NHS-run nursing homes and health centres.
- Abolish low pay and long hours in the NHS to recruit and retain medical, professional and support staff at all levels.
- New investment to help abolish waiting lists as an immediate priority, and to rebuild the NHS as a publicly-owned service, run on its founding principle of free services for all at the point of use, funded from taxation.
- A major investment programme in mental health services to provide high quality, 24-hour community-based services, backed up by hospital places for those in most serious and urgent need.
- Abolish means-tested charges for all long term nursing and "social" care of the elderly. Currently 40,000 people a year are forced to sell their houses to pay for care. We call for an injection of funds into NHS and local social services, coupled with new powers to allow them to build and run residential and nursing home accommodation. The large nursing home chains should be brought into public ownership.
- Scrap competitive tendering in our hospitals, which has destroyed standards of hygiene and patient care. Bring all NHS support services back in-house, with staff on NHS terms and conditions.
- Bring back free prescriptions, eye tests and dental treatment.
- Scrap the "postcode rationing" policies that are imposed by some health authorities on more expensive drugs and treatment. All patients should have equal access to the best available treatments.
- Expand abortion facilities - end the "postcode lottery" on access to abortion. Abortion to be available on request from the NHS up to 26 weeks of pregnancy.
- Bring the NHS under democratic control. Scrap the mushrooming network of NHS quangos, and the costly and bureaucratic "purchaser-provider split" left over from the Tory market reforms. Abolish the unaccountable trusts. Establish a new system of elected health authorities with powers to plan, commission and provide local services, accountable to the communities they serve and including health workers' representatives.
- Bring the multinational drugs and health supply companies, as well as private health companies such as BUPA, into public ownership.
BLAIR and Blunkett have continued the Tory attack on comprehensive education and the scapegoating of teachers. They make derogatory remarks about "bog-standard" comprehensives, and promise that in a second term they would introduce a system of selection that poses a major threat to the future of working class children. This would create a two-tier education structure that benefits the well off but leaves countless others as fodder for Britain's low wage economy. Blair's plan would mean more influence on education by "entrepreneurs" and businesses, more privatisation, and more pressure on teachers.
The Socialist Alliance opposes this backward lurch in education. We believe that public education is not just "vocational" - it should enable children to become rounded human beings and active citizens with critical minds. When the Socialist Alliance says, "Education, education, education," we mean it!
- Increase and sustain investment in comprehensive state education - no selection.
- Improve pay and conditions for teachers and other education workers.
- Stop and reverse Private Finance Initiative and Public-Private Partnership schemes in education.
- Abolish Education Action Zones.
- There should be a comprehensive review of the national curriculum, to involve (among others) teaching unions and experts chosen by them.
- Abolish league tables and the current testing system.
- End charitable status and tax privileges for Eton, Harrow and other private schools. Abolish private education.
- Since the Tories destroyed the school meals service a million children living in poverty do not have access to a free school meal - for many the main meal of the day. We say all children should have free nutritional breakfast and lunch at school.
- For free after-school clubs and play centres for all who need them.
- Ensure provision of a full range of arts, sports and sex education in all schools.
- Of course, education is not just about children. Young people and adults at colleges and universities - and the staff who work in them - have also suffered under both the Tories and Labour, which imposed tuition fees and ended free higher education.
We say:
- Abolish tuition fees and student loans. We call for free education and a living grant for all further and higher education students, funded from taxation on the high paid and on big business, which wants skilled workers but is getting them on the cheap.
- People of all ages should be entitled to free education and training facilities.
- For the return to local democratic control of education at all levels, to include representatives of education workers, students and the wider community.