OVER 900,000 health workers have already thrown out the Tories' insulting 1 percent pay offer.
With inflation running officially at 3.4 percent, a 1 percent "rise" is really a pay cut. The offer shows the Tories don't give a damn about the people who work in our hospitals or the health service.
Health workers have had enough.
The vote by the Royal College of Midwives to drop its no-strike rule and a similar threat by the Royal College of Nursing show the strength of anger.
Now nurses and midwives have been joined by clerical and admin workers, ancillary and ambulance workers in rejecting 1 percent.
The health workers' fight is a battle we should all join. It is a struggle for a decent health service rather than the Tories' vision of care for the rich only.
NHS workers can build a united fight over pay and put health secretary Virginia Bottomley on the run.
The protests outside hospitals up and down the country this week should be a launch for more resistance.
The leaders of the TUC unions in the NHS, like health union UNISON, should take a lead and call action.
They should campaign for a national strike over pay if the Tories do not concede a decent wage rise for every NHS worker.
"The union should call a ballot for strike action now," says Jim McLaughlin, chair of Lothian UNISON health branch. "An all out strike is the only thing that will achieve a decent wage rise."
Such strike action deserves and would win huge public support.
Everyone who hates the Tories and their attacks should support any action health workers take to fight for pay and defend our NHS.
UP TO 20,000 parents, children, school governors and teachers marched through central London last Saturday.
There were massive contingents from places like Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Shropshire and Sheffield.
The turnout from other areas could have been equally good if the leaders of the teaching unions had backed the parents' protest.
Instead the three main teaching unions organised a separate 1,000 strong lobby of parliament last Tuesday.
The leaders of the National Union of Teachers issued an instruction telling their members to stay away from Saturday's march.
Nevertheless, the march was an inspiration for many of those who took part.
"We can't just sit back and let them walk all over us," says Debbie Davies, a Shropshire parent. "I've never been on a demonstration before but I'd do anything for my children."
School caretaker Peter John Imbery told Socialist Worker, "I have written letters to Major, Clarke, Gummer and Shephard but I have not had one reply.
"I've tried one way to do something about the cuts. That hasn't worked so now I'm trying something else. That's why I've come on the march," he added.
In some places governors resisting the cuts are resigning or refusing to sack teachers.
This opposition is a nightmare for the government.
Sunday's newspapers were full of reports of the conflict within the Tories.
"Heseltine and Hurd want more money for schools," screamed the front page of the Sunday Express. The same paper quoted a cabinet source who said both ministers "have been stung by the education row".
Northamptonshire Tory councillor Peter Higson-Smith told the Sunday Telegraph, "The government's statement that economies can be made is rubbish."
Despite John Major's claim last week that it was not necessary to sack teachers, education secretary Gillian Shephard actually admitted teachers' jobs would be axed as a result of the cuts.
UNION leaders seem prepared to use any excuse to distance themselves from FACE, the Fight Against Cuts in Education campaign, the group behind Saturday's march.
Some told the Times Educational Supplement they would not associate themselves with the protest because they feared it would turn violent.
NUT officials in places like Manchester and Oldham even withdrew funding for transport to the demonstration at the last minute.
Despite this many local NUT associations came on the march and funded transport for parents.
Children's author Michael Rosen won wide applause at the rally after the march when he argued it was "shameful" the official bodies of the NUT did not suppor the march.
He also asked why the Labour Party was not there leading the protest.
THE LABOUR leadership wants no part of the current protests.
School governors setting illegal needs budgets for their schools are condemned by Tony Blair.
Labour education spokesperson David Blunkett has told NUT members in Leicestershire he was "sick and tired of griping middle class teachers".
Labour offers nothing to parents and teachers fighting the cuts except "sit back and wait" for the next election.
But what happens now to the education of the thousands of children already in classes of over 30?
What happens now to teachers being forced to join the dole queues?
The only way to stop the cuts is to keep on fighting.
This week is crucial. Governors in schools across the country will be making decisions about their budgets before the 31 March deadline.
Governors should set needs budgets and parents should show governors that they will not be on their own if they make a stand.
The more schools that set illegal budgets, the harder it will be for the local education authorities to step in and push through the cuts.
"We have to show Saturday's march was not just a one off," says a Warwickshire parent. "Parents have been phoning me since asking what we can do next."
Teachers also need to keep fighting. They must demand action where classes are already too big and oppose every redundancy.
The three teaching unions hold their national union conferences over the Easter holidays.
Delegates must force their union leaders to call coordinated action.
As a parent on Saturday's march told Socialist Worker, "I would fully support a teachers' strike against the cuts. If teachers did something perhaps the government would be forced to listen."
National FACE meeting, Saturday 1 April, 11am, Committee Room 3, Birmingham Council House (next to central library).
THE MEDIA had a field day when Eric Cantona was sentenced to two weeks jail for attacking Nazi BNP supporter Matthew Simmons.
The Daily Star was typical. Its front page declared, "He'll Frog Off". We were due for more such nonsense after Cantona's appeal, set for Friday of this week.
Here are a few questions the media have not asked:
Why was Cantona sentenced to jail when the man he attacked had only received two years probation for a vicious racist attack?
In 1992 Simmons was convicted of assault after smashing a Sri Lankan garage attendant's shoulder with a three foot spanner.
He aimed the blow at his victim's head. Attempted murder would have been a more appropriate charge.
Why did the police pour resources into the prosecution of Cantona and team mate Paul Ince when those responsible for a string of racist murders in south London over the last three years have still not been caught?
In 1992 Simmons was one of a Nazi gang that attacked a meeting protesting about these attacks.
Simmons faces charges but his lawyers say the case should be dismissed because the media circus around the Cantona conviction has prevented a fair hearing.
OVER 100 people turned out to support Eric Cantona at his trial and another protest has been called for his appeal.
Kick racism out of Football--defend Eric Cantona, protest Friday 31 March, 9.30am, Croydon Crown Court, Altyre Road, near East Croyden =.
"RAIL PRIVATISATION will be inordinately expensive and intensely bureaucratic. It will be a nightmare."
That was the verdict of British Rail chairman Sir Bob Reid who retires this week.
The cost of privatisation is an amazing £1.2 billion according to Michael Meacher, Labour's shadow transport secretary, in a devastating new report.
Government figures show costs include:
British Rail and Railtrack restructuring--£281 million.
British Rail redundancy costs--£377 million.
Creation of Office of Rail Regulator--£49 million.
Creation of Office of Passenger Rail Franchising--£33 million.
Consultants' fees--£23 million.
Other Department of Transport fees--£41 million.
Government grants to the six passenger transport executives and Strathclyde Regional Council for additional costs caused by "the restructuring of the railways"--£448 million.
Independent consultants estimate railway operating costs after privatisation will increase by between 15 and 28 percent.
Sadly the quality of Labour's report is not matched by that of its "Say no to rail privatisation" campaign.
Instead of promising to renationalise the railways without compensation, Michael Meacher says, "We will be targeting Tory marginal seats, highlighting the loss of through ticketing, increased bureaucracy and cuts."
BIG BUSINESS made record profits last year according to the latest government statistics.
Britain's bosses notched up £27.8 million profit--up 20.7 percent over 1993. That money could be used to build hospitals and schools but tax changes mean more of it than ever will remain with bosses and shareholders.
Next week, however, ordinary people will see living standards fall further as they are hit by more tax rises.
Around 500,000 people will start paying income tax for the first time. A married couple now pay income tax on earnings of just under £100 a week. From next week they will pay at £93.
ends
TWO HUNDRED police backed up by security guards smashed into anti-road protesters in Glasgow last week, clearing the way for the unpopular M77 motorway.
Two people were injured and 16 arrested including Tommy Sheridan, a Glasgow councillor and member of Scottish Militant Labour.
Protesters vowed to keep up the campaign.
ends
ANNE MARIE Brou, who was threatened with deportation back to the brutal regime of the Ivory Coast, has won a reprieve.
Anne Marie fled to Britain after threats to her life. She was arrested and interned.
After six months in the notorious Campsfield detention centre she began a 43 day hunger strike and won temporary admission to Britain for six months.
Last weekend up to 200 refugees from the Ivory Coast and their supporters met in south London.
They heard that the British government processed 320 applications for refugee status from Ivorians during 1994--every one of which was refused.
Yet Ivory Coast is run by a brutal dictatorship which routinely attacks and kills its political opponents.
More information from Ivorian Relief Action Group, 0181 265 3587.
BRITAIN'S PRISONS are overcrowded because they are full of people who should not be there.
Prison numbers are up 25 percent in just 18 months, but not because there are more violent offenders.
Only 8 percent of the increase is of people serving more than four years. The vast majority are convicted of petty offences associated with unemployment or debt.
In the year ending March 1994, 1,200 people were imprisoned for poll tax or council tax debts.
A Prison Reform Trust report says that the cost of imprisonment is far greater than the outstanding debts--which people are often too poor to pay anyway.
They give the example of a young mother who was sentenced to nine days jail at a cost of £500, for a debt of just £22.
RACISTS HAVE targeted Asian people in Leicester with a hate campaign through the post.
Razor blades have been found in letters received by at least 13 Asian households.
There was overwhelming support for petitions condemning the attack from local people both in Leicester and among those who came to the FACE demo on Saturday.
"WE BELIEVE in the free movement of people," said Tory employment secretary Michael Portillo this week.
What a bloody hypocrite!
He represents the right wing of a government that has done everything in its power to STOP people's "free movement".
The Tories REFUSED to join other countries who lifted many border controls within Europe last week.
They IMPOSE ever more brutal restrictions on refugees and asylum seekers.
Portillo's real concern is to oppose any workers, British or otherwise, getting a decent wage.
He wants to sell Britain as a pool of POVERTY pay.
His "freedom" speech came as he blocked legislation to stop workers being used as CHEAP labour when moving to another European Union country.
Portillo condemns the 70,000 British workers who flee unemployment here to work on German building sites to low wages, long hours and no job protection.
His stance also shows up Tory LIES over immigration.
British workers are far more likely to emigrate to find work abroad than foreign workers are to "flood" into Britain's low wage, crumbling economy.
two
PORTILLO'S RANT is one more example of the Tories increasingly desperate scramble to win back support.
They hope to bang the nationalist, anti-foreigner drum and play the race card to cling on to office.
In an astonishing move last week they even leaked details of new legislation eight months in advance to reveal they plan another anti-immigration bill.
Another sign of Tory desperation came with last weekend's absurd outburst from Tory minister Jonathan Aitken attacking the BBC as "Blair's Broadcasting Corporation".
In fact the BBC is run by market madman and Thatcher appointee John Birt!
Blaming the media for Tory unpopularity won't fool anyone and certainly won't save Major's skin.
The press is full of rumours of a leadership challenge to Major amid reports of Tory morale hitting rock bottom.
The Tories bash each other and lash out at anyone else they can. It's time they were finished off.
WINNIE MANDELA was sacked from the South African government this week amid corruption allegations and the claim that she was not performing well as a deputy minister.
There were much more obvious candidates for dismissal.
How about the white National Party ministers who ran apartheid for years but still sit round the cabinet table?
They tortured, imprisoned and butchered those who rose up against their vile racism. They stole £12 billion to fund the murder of anti-apartheid activists between 1986 and 1992.
Yet men like F W de Klerk and Pik Botha still enjoy the Mercedes limousines and the plush trappings of top office.
The real scandal is that 11 months after blacks voted for the first time millions still live in poverty and those who ran apartheid are treated with deep respect.
Winnie Mandela remains popular among ordinary blacks because millions feel change is happening too slowly in South Africa.
She was the only nationally known figure who spoke out, quite rightly, against the government wasting over £600,000 on the queen's visit.
Sacking Winnie Mandela will not mean more houses, more taps in the townships or a halt to the political murders which are rising again.
Unfortunately Winnie Mandela may well be guilty of the sort of corruption that many leading ANC figures have succumbed to.
She visits the poorest squatter camps but also courts the black business class and shares their lifestyle.
More importantly, she will never attempt to build a serious alternative to the ANC.
The struggles of black South Africans tore down apartheid. They need to redouble those struggles to win a decent society.
THE THOUGHT of selling Socialist Worker at work for the first time can be so intimidating that many people are put off from even trying.
Even if you like reading the paper each week there can still be that lurking feeling that nobody else in your own workplace will be interested.
What if people just laugh if you offer them the paper? What if it makes people really hostile to you? What if it makes work even harder than it already is?
Dave, a rail worker, talked to Socialist Worker about selling the paper at work.
"I'm not a very confident person, but its worthwhile sticking your head up above the trenches," he says.
Dave believes things have changed over recent years: "At one point I couldn't sell any. But now there's so much anger out there I find it a bit easier to sell the paper."
Dave is a rep for the rail workers' RMT union which means he works shifts. So he does not see the same people every week.
"Sometimes I only bump into people every three weeks," he explains.
The only way Dave can keep up his sale has been to find a way to leave the paper for people to pick up each week and collect their 50 pences when he sees them.
As he explains, "Now I do a little delivery round putting Socialist Worker in their lockers."
But how did Dave first find the people who wanted the paper?
After all, you can hardly walk around at work holding up
Socialist Worker and shouting "Who wants a copy?"
Dave has found that just talking to people can start to identify potential Socialist Worker buyers.
"People tend to know me as a bit of a bolshie," says Dave. "You have to be prepared to argue back if people come out with racist, sexist or homophobic remarks, for instance."
Dave has found that even if you don't win people over it is not disastrous.
"You might not win the argument," he explains. "But you find that people around listen. That's when you follow it up with, `Do you want the paper?' "
Dave has also picked up buyers when a big event hits the news.
"Occasionally I'll sell six or seven over an issue. When something big happens you tend to pick up buyers, but then maybe they'll stop buying after a while."
At the moment Dave regularly sells about five copies of Socialist Worker at work every week.
"The people I sell to tend to be people who consider themselves leftish," he says. "But I also sell papers over particular issues like the Criminal Justice Act."
Dave told Socialist Worker about the individuals currently buying the paper:
"I sell to a shop steward who has just left the Labour Party. I also sell to an ex-convenor of a big manufacturing plant. He's lost heart a bit. He's been through defeats but he still buys the paper and fights his corner.
"I sell to a couple of ex-miners. There's one who is really tough on the party--we don't do enough, we're not hard enough--but he buys the paper.
"In fact he demands it. If you're a day late he's looking at his watch.
"Another one is an older guy, an electrician. He despises management. He likes the paper as well."
Taking up political arguments at work is how Dave got these people to take Socialist Worker every week. "It may take some time but it pays off--eventually people start coming to you."
TONY BLAIR has finally uncovered the big idea with which he is replacing Clause Four. It's called "community".
This formed the theme of Blair's lecture last week sponsored by the Spectator, the right wing Tory weekly.
Chatter about community has become something of an obsession recently among the intellectuals (if that is the description they deserve) who have clustered around Blair.
Geoff Mulgan of the Blairite "think tank" Demos, for example, never stops talking about "communitarianism". But what does it all mean? Stressing the value of community is supposed to be a way of distinguishing Labour from the right wing individualism summed up by Margaret Thatcher's notorious declaration that "there is no such thing as society."
So, says Blair, "Individuals prosper best within a strong and cohesive society".
But at the same time he also wants to reject the stress on strong, centralised bureaucratic control which he claims was typical of the old Labour Party.
Blair says "community" implies a recognition of how people depend on one another and that government must be part of this relationship without growing too strong.
As with the proposed replacement for Clause Four, the ratio of blather to actual content in Blair's speech is quite high.
This idea of community is based on two things. Firstly, members of a community are seen as sharing a common interest which overrides other differences. Internal conflict is removed.
But of course this is not true of British society.
There are huge and glaring differences of wealth and power. Creating a genuine community would involve eliminating these--it would mean more conflict, not less, as the mass of workers challenged the bosses at the top.
But this is precisely what Blair does not want. So his "community" would be a fake, united by the fiction of shared interests behind which poverty and exploitation continue.
Secondly, a community is relatively stable. It is only because it changes fairly slowly through time that the traditions which define a community can be passed from one generation to another.
But such stability is merely a dream in the conditions of modern capitalist society. One of the defining features of capitalism is the way in which competition drives firms and states constantly to uproot existing conditions.
That's why Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto called capitalism such a revolutionary form of society:
"Constant revolutionising of society, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."
Tony Blair, as we all know, is in favour of capitalism. He wants Labour to back "the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition."
But he thinks he can somehow have the "rigour of competition" without its destructive consequences for existing communities.
He isn't the first to have made this mistake. Thatcher thought she could combine "free market" individualism with a revival of British institutions like the monarchy and the family.
Instead 15 years of rip-roaring deregulated capitalism have acted as a solvent, corroding the fabric of British society and undermining much of what Thatcher sincerely wanted to save.
The irony is that despite Blair's attack on the state, his attempts to stick Humpty Dumpty back together again will probably involve an authoritarian attempt to use coercion against groups that do not fit into his beloved "community".
That is evident in all the talk of "duty" and "responsibility" in Blair's Spectator speech and his repulsive call for the parents of truant children to be dragged before the courts.
Such pronouncements show absolutely no recognition of what life is like for the majority of people. Millions of parents, juggling jobs and child care, hardly have time to see one another, let alone constantly monitor their children's school attendance.
And why does Blair not focus on the alienation, lack of hope and slashed resources which make children want to stay away from school in the first place?
What is needed now is not a backward looking fantasy about "community" but more conflict--struggle against those whose wealth and power hold the rest of us to ransom.
"I DO not think the judiciary should be representative of the public any more than a brain surgeon should be representative of the public."
"RENATIONALISING the grid is not an option. The benefits are not as great as people would have us believe."
"THEY ARE a complete shower, one of the worst governments I can remember."
"IT IS not in the interest of council workers to allow traditional ways of working and internal arrangements to get in the way of providing local services."
"I'LL HAVE to rewrite my weekend constituency speech, Blair's just delivered it."
"THE MIDDLE class left will be appalled, but people with working class backgrounds will not mind at all."
THE MIDWIFE has her own dignity--as a plumber. Full strike costs could be recouped from scaling down this expensive, non-essential social service."
THE DEATH of Ronald Kray has stirred memories of the Kray brothers' political activities in the East End of London.
Ronald and Reginald, clearly friends of free enterprise of all types, joined in canvassing on behalf of Bethnal Green and Poplar Conservative Association.
Prominent local Tory Lady Mancroft recalls that their electioneering tactics left something to be desired.
"Once there was a frightful row and they attacked someone, throwing him across the road through a shop window," she says.
"Luckily the police were very close and the hospital managed to sew the chap's ear back on."
The Krays were not charged, thereby missing the chance to get some free legal advice from none other than Geoffrey Howe. Lady Mancroft claims that Lord Howe, then chairman of Poplar Conservatives, provided free law services for local Tories at the time.
THE LABOUR Party has rightly criticised the complete lack of democracy involved in the quangos which the government has set up to run large parts of public services.
So why are leading Labour figures in Scotland taking positions on health service quangos?
John Mullin, chairman of Strathclyde Regional Council's finance committee, has been appointed to Argyll and Clyde Health Board. Fellow Labour councillor Rev David Laing becomes a member of the Yorkhill NHS Trust.
Bill Wallace, a former full time TGWU union official, has been give a post on the board of the Scottish Ambulance Service Trust where he was chief union negotiator before he retired last year.
The vast majority of those appointed continue to be from Tory and business backgrounds. But no doubt they will be grateful for the camouflage provided by their Labour colleagues.
On top of that basic charge, the British Transport Police also demanded a further £635,000 and "refurbishment" swallowed up a further £300,000 during the year.
PERHAPS THERE was another reason why Rupert Pennant-Rea was driven from his post at the Bank of England.
A careful search of his past reveals a dalliance with the GMB union in the days when it was called the General and Municipal Workers Union.
Pennant-Rea was not of course a shop steward or rank and file boilermaker. His duties required his attendance at Ruxley Towers, at the time the union's HQ.
This estate featured 11 acres of rhododendrons, tennis courts and a swimming pool. A former colleague recalls, "He would roll up at a very civilised hour and give his undivided attention to the newspapers.
"His lunch hours were pretty flexible. I think it would be fair to say that work did not overwhelm him."
These events are run by a company called ETC and cost from £199 to £352 per person. Or you can think big and invite the lecturer to your own workplace for a mere £1,050.
A survey by the Washington Post and ABC News found that over half of Americans now agreed with the statement, "The more I hear about what the Republicans do in Congress, the less I like it."
Almost 60 percent (compared to 45 percent in January) agreed that, "The Republicans will go too far in helping the rich and cutting needed government services that benefit average Americans as well as the poor."
YOU PROBABLY think that you can no longer be shocked by anything that the heads of privatised industries do.
But it is still pretty staggering to find the chief executive of PowerGen collecting £36,000 on top of his £300,000 salary plus £322,000 share options for "three little jobs" requiring four days work a year.
Ed Wallis revealed his nice little earner minutes after telling a House of Commons committee that PowerGen plans to shed a quarter of its workforce with the loss of 1,000 jobs.
His £36,000 comes from posts as non-executive director at the British Standards Institute (£17,000), Mercury European Privatisation Trust (£10,000) and the German electricity generator RWE (£9,000).
These heavy tasks take up no more than four days a year. "I would not really call them jobs," said Wallis.
Sir Colin Southgate, PowerGen's chairman, has seen his pay rise from £86,000 to £150,000 in 18 months in addition to the £505,000 from what he described as his "main job" as chairman and chief executive of Thorn EMI.
THE Independent showed just how autonomous it really is last week when a trade union tried to place an advert in it criticising the Daily Mirror.
The National Union of Journalists was pointing out the hypocrisy of the Mirror sponsoring a Labour Party campaign for workers' rights while at the same time refusing basic union facilities itself.
The Independent, now largely owned by Mirror Group Newspapers, at first refused the ad. Then, after the NUJ said it would publicise this fact, it agreed it could go in--but not in the original prominent slot.
It also ran a version of the artwork which left out the suggestion to write letters of complaint to the chief executive of Mirror Group Newspapers.
by JOHN PARRINGTON
THE THREAT of global warming has been in the headlines in the run up to this week's Berlin conference on climate change.
An iceberg the size of Oxfordshire has broken away from the Antarctic ice shelf and huge cracks have appeared elsewhere in the ice shelf.
The fear is that this is due to the "greenhouse effect" which could see global temperatures continue to rise with catastrophic effects.
Sea levels would rise as the polar ice caps melted, drowning whole countries and major cities.
Climate patterns could shift with deserts expanding and agriculture disrupted.
Global "warming" could even mean some areas becoming colder.
Some scientists fear Britain could see temperatures plummet as the Gulf Stream, the warm ocean current that passes Britain, is diverted.
Global warming is caused by the build up of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere.
These allow the sun's rays through to the Earth but, as in a greenhouse, trap heat that would normally be radiated back into space.
These gases include carbon dioxide released through the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, as well as methane and nitrous oxide and CFC gases from fridges and aerosols.
Most scientists agree global warming IS a real threat and something must be done to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet this week's conference, with representatives of 160 countries gathering in Berlin, is unlikely to deliver the measures needed.
The conference is a continuation of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which saw world leaders promise reduced carbon dioxide emissions.
But little has been done since and the Berlin conference is "in danger of falling at the first hurdle", says the reputable New Scientist magazine.
Most countries admit they will fail to meet the modest target of stabilising carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the end of the decade.
The Berlin summit will also see splits between rival groups of countries.
So the oil producing states are not keen on any restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions, for fear they might hit their exports.
Small island states around the world, on the other hand, are very keen on restrictions. They fear they could quite literally disappear if global warming is not curbed.
Some in the Western media, and Western governments will seek to blame countries like China and India where the burning of fossil fuels and industrialisation has seen large increases in carbon dioxide emissions in recent years.
Such talk from the West is hypocrisy. At the Rio summit tens of billions of dollars of "greenhouse aid" was talked about to help such countries regulate their emissions, but little has materialised.
And the vast bulk of the world's greenhouse gases arise in the major industrial countries, with the US far and away the biggest contributor (see graph).
Yet the US is already 30 percent behind its Rio target on carbon dioxide emissions and is dragging its feet on agreeing to any new targets or restrictions on greenhouse gases.
SOME WRITERS today argue global warming is not a threat. They are part of what has been dubbed the "greenlash", a growing backlash against environmentalism.
Their claims are not based on any evidence but simply pick on the weaknesses in the way some have argued about global warning.
These weaknesses include a tendency to talk in apocalyptic terms of disaster tomorrow, instead of the reality of a longer time scale of a half century.
They also include a tendency to see industry as such as the problem, when the real problem is the unregulated and capitalist, profit driven, organisation of that industry.
If profit were not the overriding concern it would be possible simply using existing technology to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent globally.
And technology exists which could clean up emissions from power stations and the like. It isn't properly used because it would cut profits.
The real motives behind the "greenlash" are betrayed by its proponents' fanatical defence of free market capitalism.
Their problem with concern for the environment is that it gets in the way of profits.
One of those often quoted, Wilfred Beckerman, formerly of the World Bank, even argues it is "far from obvious" we should have any consideration at all for future generations!
Among those supporting reports playing down the danger of global warming are major US companies like Dow Chemicals, which fears its profits would be badly hit by restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.
But many important sections of big business ARE worried about global warming.
They include the American Gas Council, representing gas firms.
Even here though, profit is not far from the surface. Gas burning produces less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels so the gas companies hope some restrictions on emissions will boost their profits at the expense of rivals.
And last week the world's major insurance companies joined with the Greenpeace environmental group to demand action on global warming.
They are in a panic after the string of huge claims they have had to pay up for after a rise in the number of disastrous floods like those which hit northern Europe this year.
They blame this rise on global warming--though it is not certain this is the explanation--and want something done before they get clobbered harder.
The problem, however, is that even when governments and big business recognise the problem and want to do something about it, they can't take effective action.
The system they run is based on competition between firms and countries. It might be in their collective interest to spend money to overcome the greenhouse effect.
But it is also in each of their individual interests to get another country or firm to bear the costs.
The result is lots of international conferences like the one in Berlin with lots of talk and promises but little real or effective cooperation or action.
The only sure way to deal with the greenhouse effect and the threat of global warming requires a rejection of the market and the competition for profit that lies at the heart of the system.
THE TORIES have been trying to present themselves in the media as "green", with John Gummer as the unlikely saviour of the environment.
The basis for the claim is that Britain is one of the few countries promising to meet the target of stabilising carbon dioxide emissions by the end of the decade.
But this is not a result of "green" government policy. It is an accidental consequence of the recession and the run down of the coal industry.
In reality the Tories record on the environment is appalling. They have blocked earlier attempts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
They have presented nuclear power as a solution to the greenhouse effect. Not only is nuclear power unsafe, but in fact money spent on it would be seven times more useful if invested in energy saving.
Meanwhile the Tories have slashed the domestic and industrial heat insulation programme by over 60 percent.
A series of simple measures could begin to tackle greenhouse emissions.
One would be to cut down on pollution from cars by backing a massive expansion of public transport. Yet instead the Tories are pushing ahead with still more road building schemes.
IN THE next few weeks members of the CWU telecom and postal workers' union will be asked their views on Tony Blair's new Labour Party constitution.
A ballot paper will go out with the union journal. Even though the result will not be binding on the executive, it's a chance for us to hold meetings at work and show our support for public ownership.
BT's attacks on the workforce provide a perfect example of why the Labour Party should be sticking with Clause Four.
Since privatisation BT workers have been subjected to mass scale redundancies and constant attacks on their conditions.
Our workloads have soared in line with BT's profits and our bosses' wages.
Tony Blair is out of touch. BT workers have opposed implementation of management attacks and in the Post Office workers have fought privatisation.
Since privatisation our union has had a policy of supporting BT's renationalisation.
At a London CWU branch officials meeting in February there was an unofficial forum on Clause Four. Of the 90 people there only two voted against Clause Four and they were the union's joint general secretaries.
Our union leaders have decided to back Blair. This is despite the fact that the NCU telecom union, now merged in the CWU, had policy supporting Clause Four and our union leaders are well aware of the effects of privatisation.
That is why we have to make the most of this ballot.
LUCY COLEMAN, Leeds
I AM writing to your paper about four journalists who were falsely arrested by the oppressive government of Swaziland.
They have been accused of "racialist attacks" and false accusations against government public officials.
Swaziland has a long history of gagging the press and intimidation of journalists is not new.
On Monday 13 March the government was hit by a 100 percent effective general strike which paralysed the whole country.
King Mswati III had to
rush back home from the UN World Hunger Conference in Copenhagen.
The people laughed all day and the following day as government officials panicked, not knowing what to do.
They went to the High Court to ask that the strike be declared illegal. The High Court threw the matter out and ordered the government to settle with the workers and the trade union movement.
People laughed even louder this time.
CLEMENT DUMISA DLAMINI, London
I'VE JUST heard Kenneth Clarke talking about the "recovery" and how all we lack is the feel good factor.
People are being forced into inadequate training and meaningless jobs. The Labour Party say nothing.
But Socialist Worker is not aiming at a broad enough target.
Not everyone works. There are more people on benefits than in trade unions.
DILEEP BAGNALL, Blackburn
DAVE TAYLOR asks if the Internet which links computers together will divide society into information "haves" and "have nots" or will it be a liberating technology? (Socialist Worker, 11 March.)
With all the hype about the Internet there is a danger that people will go overboard about it.
Either they see it as a liberating force out of control by any government, or alternatively they see it as dominated by a few giant companies selling expensive services to the few who can afford it.
The truth is neither of these. The Internet is just a set of rules that enables those with access to computers to talk to each other over the telephone lines.
So will this liberate us?
Hardly. Old fashioned post, renamed snail mail by some Internet fans, is still the handiest way of sending most messages.
The real uses of Internet are very specific. It is a reliable way of getting information around the world quickly.
During the attempted coup in Moscow in 1991 electronic mail was used to get reports out of Russia as tanks patrolled the streets and the KGB occupied the telephone exchanges.
All very useful, but it isn't going to change the world. To do that we need to take control of all the means of production.
Using the Net has its place but it needs to be kept in proportion to avoid being a diversion.
GEOFF BROWN, Manchester
IN JANUARY myself and 400 other demonstrators were at a rally outside News International's Wapping plant.
We heard TUC leader John Monks angrily denounce the continued trampling of union rights by media bosses.
On 7 March a full page article appeared in the Daily Mirror launching a joint TUC/Mirror campaign for part time workers' rights.
The article--printed in a paper which has refused to talk to its unions ever since locking out 100 casual workers three years ago--was written by one John Monks.
Double standards are to be expected from an industry concerned not with principles but with profits.
What is more obscene is that the Mirror Group's hypocrisy is being given the seal of approval by the labour movement. We need our unions to lead a fight for better conditions.
But the Mirror episode also highlights the need for a strong rank and file that can challenge the cowardice of its own leaders.
MARIA HOYLE, South London
I WOULD like to reply to a letter last month about socialists and charity (Socialist Worker, 11 March).
All the problems with charities could be seen with the recent Comic Relief.
Ordinary people gave millions of pounds. Their generosity is not "conscience money". It is a sign that people care about others and want to help those in need.
But there is a negative side to charity. Comic Relief has always been the chance for big businesses, which have wrecked the lives of millions, to polish up their public image by handing over a cheque for a few thousand pounds.
Similarly, the Tories support charity as an alternative to state and local
authority spending on essential services.
I think people have a right to the services they need. They should not have to be reliant on the generosity of others.
Above all, charity cannot begin to solve the world's problems.
Ben Elton was right on Comic Relief some years ago when he told viewers to "cut out the middle man--give your money straight to the bank."
All the good work of Oxfam is a drop in the ocean compared to the damage inflicted on the Third World by the banks, big business and western governments.
MIKE HOLDEN, North London
AFTER FIVE solid years of campaigning Bexley council have finally taken steps to close down the BNP headquarters in Welling, south London.
It has taken over 30 pickets of council meetings, four major demonstrations and over 35,000 names on petitions.
Despite the weakness of the council's action--they are trying to use technical planning laws--this still represents an opportunity to deliver another blow to the Nazis following their recent by-election defeats.
The Anti Nazi League are calling a lobby of the inquiry.
Nazis have whipped up scare stories about anti-racists rioting outside the inquiry in an attempt to turn attention away from themselves.
But we have to turn the spotlight back on the real thugs--those behind the murders of four young black men in south London and recent football riots in Dublin--the BNP.
GUY TAYLOR, South London
ALEX Callinicos rightly stresses the current differences between Labour and the Tories (Socialist Worker, 25 March).
But he is quite wrong to argue that Blair's moves to reduce the influence of union leaders in the Labour Party won't get very far. The process is already well advanced.
Fundraising from individual members and businesses has already cut union financial contributions to Labour's day to day expenses from 75 percent to 55 percent.
One Member One Vote, introduced in 1993, has left unions unable to secure bottom line commitments to renationalisation of water, full employment and a stated level for the minimum wage.
Several top union leaders--most notably Gavin Laird of the engineers' and electricians' AEEU--actually want Labour to become a British version of the US Democrats.
And the TUC is busily courting the Liberal Democrats and even the Tories.
Arthur Scargill is the only general secretary who has publicly contemplated an alternative party. Yet the NUM is now one of the smaller unions.
Labour remains a "capitalist workers' party". Whether that description will apply in ten or even five years is now open to question.
DAVID OSLER, North London
They would have to work 30 hours a week for £97.70. The hours are spread in short bursts from 6am Monday morning to 10.30pm Saturday night.
It even says the successful applicant must be experienced.
What worries me is that when Labour politicians beat their chest about full employment they might mean this.
ANDREW CROWTHER, Halifax
Socialist Worker could help this happen by setting up a nationwide petition against the banks demanding they cancel debts to Africa.
If they have proof that this is what people want they can no longer use British people not caring as an excuse not to get off their arse.
KATHY ORGAN, Worthing
I received a letter from the mother of one of the men telling me that funds are very low for the campaign.
If readers of Socialist Worker could send a donation it would help the campaign to fight this gross travesty of justice.
The campaign address is 28 Grimsel Path, Camberwell, London SE5 OTB.
AMINA S CHOUDHRY, Glasgow
THE TURKISH government's invasion of the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq is as brutal as it is desperate.
Some 35,000 troops, backed by modern tanks, helicopters and jets, have poured across the border into the United Nations declared "safe haven" for the Kurds.
The official military aim of the operation is to destroy the bases of the PKK guerillas who have been fighting inside Turkey for Kurdish independence.
Its real reason is a desperate attempt by the Turkish government to divert attention from its own economic crisis and the aftermath of the police massacre of working class protesters in Istanbul last month.
Turkish prime minister Tansu Ciller says, "Everything that can be done will be done to save civilians and civil organisations. Turkey always respects the law."
In reality the invasion is a continuation of a bloody, unreported war waged by the Turkish government over the last ten years.
Some 60,000 people have been killed in bloody repression of the Kurds and millions have been forced to flee--many over the border into northern Iraq.
This repression has seen the Turkish government condemned by Amnesty International as one of the world's worst abusers of human rights.
Last December eight Kurdish MPs were sentenced to 15 years in jail. Days afterwards the leaders of Turkey's two main human rights organisations were put on trial after they dared mention the atrocities in Kurdistan.
That did not worry the US and British governments.
They turned a blind eye to past repression and have little to say now.
Turkey's invasion of northern Iraq has blown apart the myth of John Major's "safe haven" for the Kurds, established after the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Yet Major remains silent, while "the United States has tried to defend Turkey's invasion as self defence," admits the Washington Post.
Only a massive propaganda offensive, combined with the fear of being gunned down in the streets, has prevented protests inside Turkey.
No disciplinary action has been taken against police who slaughtered 30 demonstrators in the week before the invasion took place.
Another 35 demonstrators are missing--believed to be in the torture chambers of the "anti-terrorist police".
Turkey's trade union leaders have used the invasion as a pretext to call off a demonstration and a planned general strike against the killings.
However, the working class is paying the price of the war against the Kurds--which swallows 40 percent of all government spending.
Unemployment is at least 20 percent and inflation is 130 percent.
With the invasion costing £1.5 billion, Turkish workers could soon make the connection between their hardship and the government's dirty war.
Then the Turkish ruling class will face an opposition that can really stop the bloodbath in Kurdistan.
WESTERN governments are petrified of undermining Turkey's rulers.
They fear any weakening of the regime will add to the instability across the Balkans and the Middle East.
In the Balkans, Greece and Turkey--NATO allies--are vying with each other for spheres of influence.
In the Middle East the US and NATO governments need a powerful Turkey as a counterweight to the rival regimes of Iraq and Iran.
The US cannot decide which it fears most.
Recent riots in the oil rich Gulf state of Bahrain have frightened the US into making new threats against Iran.
However, the US is determined to maintain economic sanctions on Iraq "until Saddam Hussein is deposed".
FRENCH WORKERS have forced their way to the centre of the country's presidential election campaign through a rash of strikes and protests.
In the last week Renault car workers have struck and won a significant victory over pay.
A series of stoppages hit plants across the country and has been enough to win a 4.5 percent wage increase.
The strike started with workers demanding parity with Peugeot-Citroen car workers who got 3. 5 percent. Both deals are above inflation.
Meanwhile in Corsica a ten day near general strike has forced the government to agree to a special 3 percent wage supplement to compensate for the high cost of living on the island.
A flurry of strikes has also hit chemical and metal plants in Alsace in eastern France. Workers there are showing the kind of European unity we should build by demanding parity with German workers just across the border.
Airline workers in both the internal Air Inter and the external Air France airlines have also been staging stoppages and protests over pay.
This week rail workers and Paris Metro workers were set to stage a day of action over wages.
Paris has also seen almost daily demonstrations.
Tens of thousands of pensioners marched last week demanding a better deal from whoever wins the presidential election.
Health workers and students have also protested. And on one day last week four separate demonstrations crossed the city to the prime minister's office.
The first round of the presidential election is due in three weeks time.
At the moment Jacques Chirac, the Tory mayor of Paris, is ahead in the polls. But rival Tory candidate Edouard Balladur and Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin are within striking distance.
The close race means none of the candidates dares risk losing votes by taking a hard line against protesters.
But whoever wins the election will soon change their tune.
THE LIBERAL government in Canada has been rocked by a two week national rail strike involving 30,000 workers.
The workers were forced back after the government passed special "back to work" legislation making the strike illegal. Under the law a rank and file striker could be fined up to £500 a day for staying on strike.
Shamefully the Liberals' measures were not opposed by the Canadian equivalent of the Labour Party--the New Democratic Party.
The dispute erupted after the government went on the attack over job security, conditions of work and pay in the run up to proposed privatisation.
The strike cost business and the rail firms millions of pounds every day.
One of the rail networks involved, Canadian Pacific, was forced to "train" accountants, statisticians and lawyers to scab.
Canada's Liberals were elected in 1993 after nine years of Tory rule on the basis of defence of jobs and services.
Now they want to cut 45,000 public sector jobs and break up the Canadian NHS--Medicare.
But as a Canadian socialist says, "The rail strike shows there is a real mood of bitterness and bloody mindedness."
SOME 90,000 trade unionists filled Prague's old town square last Saturday in protest against government attacks on welfare.
The demonstration, called by the Czech union federation, was against attacks on pensions, means testing of child benefit, tuition fees in universities and other attacks.
The campaign has so far only led to a symbolic 15 minute token stoppage last December. However, last month workers at the Sellier & Bellot arms factory threatened to strike over pay.
The union committee at the country's largest railway station has also declared a state of "strike readiness".
GAY ACTIVIST group OutRage's exposure of gay bishops and its letters to MPs encouraging them to "come out" have sparked a new controversy about outing.
Outing is the practice of naming public figures privately known to be lesbian or gay.
The row should not be allowed to obscure the fact that gay liberation is an issue for everyone.
This is not just because gays suffer oppression, though it is a good enough reason on its own.
Gays are discriminated against in everything from the age at which they can have sex to their right to stay in the home of a partner after his or her death.
You may be discriminated against at work because you are gay, or hounded from the armed forces.
You can be abused, harassed, insulted and even jailed by the police.
It is an oppression that leads so many young gays and lesbians to try to take their own lives that they make up 30 percent of all teenage suicides in the United States.
Gay liberation is important too because our sexuality is used by those at the top of society to divide us.
Just as the bosses love racism because it sets white workers against black, they love homophobia--hatred of homosexuality--because it provides scapegoats.
Saying no to bigotry is a vital step because we cannot fight successfully unless we are united--black and white, men and women, gay and straight.
There is a third reason gay liberation affects everyone.
The individual liberty of each of us depends on winning freedom for everyone--freedom to live how, and to love who, we want.
Bigots use all kinds of arguments to justify their prejudice, but most often claim sex between people of the same gender is "unnatural".
This is as stupid as arguing that eating in a restaurant or sleeping in a bed is not natural.
There have been people who have loved members of their own sex in every society, at every time--and despite every possible attempt at repression.
Today newspapers, television and advertising almost always reinforce the idea that sexual relations exclusively involve a man and a woman.
This is one reason why some gay activists argue for a strategy of outing, to show that there are gays and lesbians everywhere in society.
Outing is not a new idea but it has been taken up in earnest--principally in the US--by a generation of activists radicalised by struggles around AIDS.
They were understandably angry at people they saw in positions of power who lived gay lives in private while publicly posing as straight.
One gay activist wrote, "You slimy, self-loathing, hypocritical monsters. You go to parties, you whirl with bigots and murderers, you lie and engage in cover-ups--meanwhile we're dying."
The newspapers which now attack Peter Tatchell of OutRage are displaying the rankest hypocrisy.
They invade the privacy of ordinary people and wreck lives without a thought.
The same papers which attack Tatchell subjected him to a hate campaign when he stood as a left wing Labour candidate in south London's Bermondsey in 1983, whipping up a storm that led to Nazi death threats and firebomb attacks on Tatchell's home.
But outing is not an effective way to fight gay and lesbian oppression.
On the contrary, it is counterproductive. It can feed the idea that there is something disgraceful about being gay or lesbian.
We want the sort of society where people feel confident and happy about coming out--saying they are gay or lesbian without fear of harsh consequences resulting.
Coming out provides a positive example for others.
But outing people, forcing their sexuality into the open when they have kept it hidden--shaming them--certainly does not.
Worse, it plays into the hands of the right wing papers and the bigotry they feed.
Outing is likely to drive people deeper into the closet.
For every person who is embarrassed into the open, others will be frightened and feel they have to be more secretive.
Whatever the intentions of the "outers", outing inevitably takes on the character of a witch hunt.
It is no way to fight for the right of everyone to express themselves without feeling repressed.
HEAlTH WORKERS were this week set to protest against the Tories' 1 percent pay offer. The pay offer comes on top of job insecurity, staff shortages and over work. SOCIALIST WORKER spoke to health workers working in the Tories' market orientated NHS
JESSICA IS a dermatology nurse in a NOTTINGHAM hospital. A 1 percent pay rise means just£2.15 a week extra in her wage packet.
"It's got worse and worse on the wards. There are just three of us looking after 30 patients. It means I don't get any breaks.
"You have to juggle things. You can be taking someone to the toilet, another patient will ring for attention, someone else will need a dressing or cream applied, another patient has to be prepared for theatre--all at the same time.
"An acute new admission will need immediate attention. If you deal with them you have to neglect your other patients.
"Most patients are great about it, they sympathise with us. We're all nicknamed `Just a minute' because that's always our answer.
"Patients are discharged too early. I recently had to discharge a woman who had crippling arthritis and had just lost her husband. She was just dumped into the community without support.
"When I get home from a day on the ward I'm exhausted. Often I'll remember something I forgot to do and have to ring in. You never really relax.
"I feel so frustrated because I can't give the care I'm trained to do."
A staff nurse in DUDLEY says, "Hospitals are not safe places to be anymore".
A patient at the hospital recently disappeared off a ward, after warnings from nurses that staffing levels were dangerously low were ignored.
The patient was found dead from exposure in a snowstorm five hours later.
"We don't have enough people working on the wards," says the staff nurse. "I started working in the NHS ten years ago. But I took a break for four years. When I came back I was horrified.
"All the equipment in my hospital--beds, mattresses, lifts--has been bought by charity. We are always running raffles.
"It's harder work on the wards. Rotating shift patterns mean nurses feel permanently tired.
"Managers expect a higher `productivity' from us, so we have to deal with more patients.
"It means all you can give is basic care. There's no time to make sure patients have their hair washed or their nails trimmed. There isn't time to talk to patients, to explain what's happening to them."
A SHEFFIELD nurse says trust managers have created new low paid jobs. "My official job title is support worker, which means I'm an unqualified nurse. I basically do the job of a nurse with a two year qualification but for less money.
"We're forced to do jobs we're not yet trained for, like taking blood pressure, because there are not enough qualified staff on the ward."
A midwife in east London's TOWER HAMLETS reports, "In my hospital last weekend there was nowhere to send women who'd just had their baby because the post-natal ward was full.
"There were just two workers on the ward looking after 23 women with 23 babies.
"You can imagine the sort of stress that causes. People are ground down and exhausted.
"I do a lot of visiting in the community. Midwives are in the frontline. In Tower Hamlets we face all sorts of social problems, poverty and deprivation.
"Some days I have to do up to 14 visits, which doesn't give you time to talk to the new mothers, to deal with their problems."
"THERE IS a feeling that the axe is about to fall," says Sue, a staff nurse at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. "There have been no new job vacancies here for 18 months.
"The gaps in staff are filled by `bank' or agency workers because management don't have to pay them sickness and holiday pay.
"They are looking at every aspect of how money can be cut. That's what makes local pay such a joke. How will our hospital find 2 percent to fund the pay rise when they are already in deficit?"
A children's nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital agrees.
"I only qualified six months ago but I'm often the only qualified nurse on the ward, working alongside agency staff and responsible for a whole ward of sick kids.
"Our hospital got trust status last April. It means services have to attract business backing. My unit could close if we don't get enough backers."
A care assistant on a psychiatric ward of a general hospital in Cardiff says that his take home pay of just £580 a month is tied to working three weekends in four.
"Everyone--doctors, nurses and ancillary staff--is on two year contracts. Some nurses have been refused mortgages. There is no job security."
Michelle, a ward sister in a hospice, insists, "You can't run a hospital like a market. I recently rang the `buying' department because I needed emergency equipment. They said if I purchased it that day it would cost £65, but if I waited until tomorrow it would be just £12.
"So a patient's needs are calculated against the cost."
ANGER AGAINST the Tories' decimation of the NHS has reached breaking point.
The vote by midwives to scrap their no strike rule shows that.
So too does the surge of anger among nurses in the no-strike Royal College of Nurses which is also to decide on a possible industrial action ballot soon.
Jessica from Nottingham reports that nurses in the RCN she works with say they would be prepared to go on strike.
Christine, a Glasgow nurse, says, "People who are not usually radical are screaming over pay because it comes on top of staff shortages and harder work. It's not just a question of the money."
Already the anger is breaking out in resistance to management over a host of small local issues.
"We've beaten management on car parking charges. Our UNISON union has grown as a result," says a Dudley nurse.
"We've had big union meetings where people have voted by a show of hands that they would be willing to strike over things like changing shift patterns."
A lab technician at a hospital in Sheffield says that small disputes are brewing across his hospital.
"Trust status has meant so many changes. Management are trying to get secretarial staff and ancillary lab technicians to merge jobs. That means secretaries would have to work at the bench with blood samples. Workers are refusing to cooperate.
"We have had small victories. When management tried to change the contracts of some nurses last year they backed down when the nurses involved decided to ballot for strike action."
If this kind of anger and resistance is harnessed into a national fight to win proper pay and to defend the NHS, nurses and other health workers would win massive support from other workers.
LAST WEEK saw the publication of an ICM survey on racism in Britain.
Socialists should always be very sceptical about the findings of opinion polls. But this particular poll contained results which, if even approximately accurate, are of great interest.
The survey showed, and I quote the Guardian, that, "the notion that manual workers are more prejudiced than the middle classes receives no support at all.
"The proportion [of prejudiced people] is 19 percent among AB professionals and managerials, C1 clericals and C2 skilled manuals. It falls to 18 percent among the DE unskilled or unemployed."
The reason this is important is that these findings run completely counter to the dominant "liberal" line on questions of race and lend strong support to a socialist analysis.
The liberal view is that racism is primarily an ignorant prejudice of the masses. It is seen as a kind of "instinctive" gut reaction to which people who have not had the benefit of a decent education or experienced the civilising influence of middle class respectability are particularly prone.
The socialist view is that racism is a product of capitalism and imperialism. Its origins lie in the ruling class's need to justify the exploitation of black people, first through the slave trade and then in the colonies.
It is perpetuated today to divide the working class and divert anger at the ills of the system onto convenient scapegoats.
According to the liberal view the archetypal racist is an Alf Garnett figure or a young skinhead.
According to the socialist view the real authors of racism are capitalist politicians like Thatcher, Lilley and Portillo. They are the ones who cynically exploit the bigotry they and their predecessors have implanted in the likes of Garnett and the skinhead.
The different views lead to very different strategies for fighting racism.
The liberal strategy is that racism is best tackled by getting the enlightened middle classes to educate the working class.
The socialist strategy, whilst supporting anti-racist education, is that anti-racist arguments are most effective in the context of united working class struggle.
The liberal view appeals to guilt and tolerance. The socialist view appeals to the common interest of black and white workers.
According to the liberal analysis racism should be much more prevalent among the working class. According to the socialist analysis it is likely to be most concentrated at the top of society.
There is an abundance of historical evidence in favour of the socialist analysis:
Despite this overwhelming evidence the myth of racism as an essentially working class phenomenon persists.
One reason for this is that the anti-racist tone in the media and the race relations industry is set by middle class people who do not know or even hear working class people.
Another is that where racism exists in the working class, and of course it does exist as the BNP vote in the East End has shown, it is likely to be expressed openly.
In contrast in the middle and upper classes racism is, at least in public, more hypocritical and shamefaced.
But take this hypocrisy factor into account (and the pollsters now do take it into account in predicting election results) and the findings of the ICM poll are even more devastating to the liberal view.
For then they would indicate that racism is not slightly but considerably more prevalent at the top of society than the bottom--just as the socialist view would predict.
THE COMMUNIST Manifesto, written by the great revolutionary socialists Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, is more relevant today than when it was first published in 1848.
During Marx and Engels' time the working class was a tiny minority of the world's population.
Today there are tens of millions of workers in every country and capitalism is a world system.
From Bombay to Lagos millions of workers toil every day, selling their labour to create the wealth that lines the pockets of that tiny minority--the capitalists.
Internationally workers face the same problems and many are driven to ask the same question--how can we rid ourselves of the parasites that feed off us and successfully fight to overturn a system that only cares for profit?
The Communist Manifesto, barely 40 pages in length, is a brilliant guide to understanding this world so we can change it--every socialist should read it.
THE COMMUNIST Manifesto itself was a product of class struggle.
In 1847 the system went into economic crisis, bringing with it factory closures, attacks on wages, food shortages and growing unrest.
Against this background an early revolutionary grouping--the Communist League--met in London. Then the word "communist" was not associated with the horrors of Stalinism in Russia. It simply meant revolutionary socialist.
Marx and Engels drafted a statement of intent. The Communist Manifesto was published a few months later.
In 1848 a revolutionary wave hit Europe, peaking with the downfall of the French monarchy.
These were not movements led by workers--although workers took part--rather they were "bourgeois", led by capitalists and the middle classes, groups impatient to remove the dead hand of the old feudal order.
But workers were beginning to articulate their own independent demands. They saw their enemy was not just the old order but the new bourgeoisie intent on developing capitalism.
It was this new working class that Marx and Engels looked to as having the revolutionary potential to transform capitalism into a new society which would put the interests of the vast majority of humanity first.
The Communist Manifesto begins by declaring that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles".
By this Marx and Engels meant that capitalism was not the first society built on exploitation.
From Ancient Rome, built on slavery, through to feudalism with the "lord in his manor and the poor man at the gate" all these societies were built on class lines.
Marx and Engels tell how these societies rose and fell as a minority took over and transformed the existing order.
The difference between past class societies and capitalism was that for the first time the "productive forces" were potentially able to achieve a world free of famine, disease and want.
Today, for instance, we produce enough food to feed the world twice over.
Marx and Engels saw that it was the development of capitalism that made these things achievable.
In the middle of the last century capitalism was sweeping all before it. Constantly it had to find new methods--like the invention of the steam engine--and new territories to conquer.
As Marx and Engels wrote, capitalism "compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, ie, to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image".
SOME SOCIALISTS during Marx and Engels' day believed capitalism would continue to develop until there was plenty for all.
But the manifesto is clear that capitalism even then was a destructive and cruel system that had to be overthrown.
Under capitalism everything and everybody is reduced to a commodity to be bought and sold. Marx and Engels described capitalism as "naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation".
Today Tony Blair praises the "dynamic of the market" and the "rigours of competition" as if these can benefit ordinary people.
But in the last century Marx and Engels saw that the market brought misery for millions.
But they could not have imagined the horrors the next century of capitalism would bring--the slaughter of the First World War, the Nazi Holocaust, the obliteration of Hiroshima and famine multiplying across Africa.
As capitalism grows older it is shaken by deeper and deeper crisis.
The Communist Manifesto--written at a time of recession--shows how periodically the system has an "epidemic of overproduction". The various competing capitalist concerns produce too much.
Because there is no planning matching output with need, the market is flooded. Capitalists find they can no longer sell their goods at the previous prices.
The whole system is destabilised. Weaker concerns are ruined and go to the wall. Factories shut down and bitter workers are thrown on the scrap heap.
The surviving firms take over the market and the destructive and inefficient process starts again.
WHO THEN has the means and desire to put an end to the anarchy of capitalism?
In 1848 Marx and Engels saw a battle was beginning to emerge between "two great hostile camps".
As the Communist Manifesto says, "not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that brings death to itself; it has called into existence the men [and women] who are to wield these weapons--the modern working class".
Marx and Engels describe how as capitalism expands so does the working class.
Gathered in workplaces they are forced to organise themselves, resisting attacks like speed ups and wage cuts.
They begin to combine into trade unions, to be able to use their collective strength more effectively.
They find themselves at "war" with the bosses.
At points they withdraw their labour--they down tools or walk out on strike--the only effective weapon they have.
Under capitalism it is workers who produce everything.
That is why every time workers fight they challenge the logic of capitalism, the pursuit of profit.
And the more workers fight back, the more class conscious they become.
Marx and Engels saw that "all previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority...what the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own gravediggers."
However, socialism is not inevitable.
Marx and Engels warned that, unless it was deliberately fought for, the end result could be the "common ruin of the contending classes".
In the late 20th century the spectre of nuclear holocaust, or the destruction of the planet's environment, stares us squarely in the face.
A large part of the Communist Manifesto is therefore taken up with how Marx and Engels saw the vital role of revolutionary socialists--organising and giving direction to working class struggle.
That task is more urgent than it ever was. The rallying cry of the Communist Manifesto is still the watchword of revolutionaries today:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at the Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
IMAGINE BEING so personally ambitious that at the moment you were groping around the floor having a heart attack you thought, "Aha, this is just what my career needs."
Michael Heseltine could well be such a man.
From Hugo Young in the Guardian to tabloid editorials, Heseltine is once again being touted as likely to succeed Major before the general election.
And every article supporting this theory points out in earnest tones that a point in his favour is that "at 62 and having had a heart attack he won't be around that long", thus ensuring he would fulfil a role as a stopgap leader for the election.
Tory MPs themselves go along with this, with one quoted saying, "We could rely on him for a spectacular early death."
What a marvellous illustration of a desperate party--a serious consideration for someone's leadership potential is that they'll soon be dead.
But if Major should go it would make for a wonderful contest to replace him.
Imagine Hezza, his fringe cascading, bellowing, "And furthermore, what the Conservative Party needs is a man with a dicky heart, and I am that man. Ooh, too much excitement already. Has anyone got some water? Look at me. I'm on borrowed time."
Then Kenneth Clarke would open his campaign with, "I've been sick as a dog for years you know. I've seen all the specialists. They can't do a thing. I tell you, every day's a bonus."
His supporters would point out his love for real ale and unveil blown up photos of his beer gut.
Heseltine would retaliate with a press conference showing him stuffing his face with cream cakes and surrounded by Special Brew, screaming, "That's nothing. I'll be lucky to make it through election night."
Clarke might respond with a promise to start playing squash without a doctor's advice and late entrant Michael Portillo would announce he's taking up motor racing and mountaineering.
The farcical depths of the Tory crises are entertaining for many reasons.
Firstly, would Heseltine be any less despised than Major?
I was at Lords watching a test match when I saw a newspaper headline announcing "Heseltine Has Heart Attack".
"Is he dead?" I asked the newspaper seller. "I bloody well hope so", he replied and everyone around agreed that it would be altogether better if he was. Not much encouragement then from the Dennis Compton stand.
Indeed a Sunday Times poll suggests that, should Heseltine replace Major, Labour's lead would be cut from only 34 percent to 31 percent.
In the midst of the panic running riot in Tory circles it's worth remembering what was being said less than three years ago.
"John Major looks out and is master of all he surveys", said the Sun.
"How does it feel to be living in a one party state?" asked the Financial Times the morning after the election.
Worse still were the cynical Labour supporters. "I've resigned myself to never seeing another Labour government in my lifetime," one socialist in their thirties told me.
Having been proved so ridiculously wrong in their belief that nothing could stop people supporting the Tories, they now argue that nothing can make people return to other "old fashioned" ideas like public ownership and solidarity.
My tip for the pessimists is, "You were wrong before, and you will be again." And my tip for the next Tory leader is a close run contest between Franois Mitterrand and Deng Xiaoping.
by ALAN GIBSON
THOUSANDS of people, particularly Socialist Worker readers, must often yell at the news.
In strikes it's workers who get the blame "for holding the country to ransom".
Violence on a demonstration is never the fault of the police. If there isn't any violence, the chances are the march will never get reported--witness last year's Carnival Against the Nazis.
For these reasons, Channel 4's season of programmes Whose News? is both welcome and frustrating.
Some programmes give a fascinating insight into how news items are selected and how major political parties manipulate the news.
Last week's Dispatches programme, part of the season, showed how difficult it is for organisations with little muscle to get news coverage.
One of its most powerful contrasts was between the way right wing Tory MP Teresa Gorman is feted by the news and the lack of coverage given to the 700 sacked Clarke's shoe workers.
One weakness in the Channel 4 programmes is that they don't show how major companies--like Rupert Murdoch's--are gaining a stranglehold on the news.
Such people are now demanding the government relaxes controls even more so they can buy up more TV channels, papers and radio stations.
The result will be the news more dominated by sensational items and scandals while the lives and struggles of workers get even less coverage than now.
Another weakness of Channel 4's season is that it doesn't mention the one force that could change all this--media workers themselves.
Journalists, broadcasters and technicians have in the past stood up against government censorship and the bias of TV and newspaper owners.
During the Gulf War hundreds of media workers joined Media Workers Against the War. More recently many have supported Media Workers Against the Nazis.
The National Union of Journalists has led protests against government censorship of coverage of Northern Ireland.
Amid great social upheavals this resistance can go even further. In the revolutionary wave that swept Portugal in 1974-5 media workers seized control of major newspapers and radio stations and turned them to report and support workers' struggles.
Ultimately Whose News? depends on the strength of our side to fight for it.
by STUART MORGAN
MOST people regard classical music as conservative music which belongs to the rich leisured classes.
For this reason many readers of this paper will not automatically rush to see the new film about the composer Beethoven, Immortal Beloved.
Yet most great classical composers were to some degree rebels against existing society. And Beethoven, the greatest of them all, was a revolutionary in his life and music.
He grew up in the late 18th century when European society was dominated by the landed aristocracy who treated the lower and middle classes with contempt.
They expected a musician like Beethoven bow and scrape to them.
But Beethoven was not prepared to bow to anyone. He was deliberately rude to aristocrats and rejoiced at the revolution that saw the French king executed in 1793.
His attitude led to him to break, even more thoroughly than Mozart a few years before, with sedate 18th century court music.
Beethoven's music is marked by passionate intensity, sudden explosions of feeling, a sense of contradiction and struggle, of life fighting oppression.
The revolutionary wave of the 1790s receded in the face of reborn reaction in the first decades of the 19th century.
In Beethoven's case the blow was magnified as he became stone deaf.
The hope of bridging the gap between the bitterness of everyday existence and the dream of liberation virtually vanished from real life.
But it continued to find expression in his music. In the choral finale to his ninth symphony freedom and joy reign supreme as "all men will be brothers".
The film shows some of this, but its story line is that the inspiration for Beethoven's music came from his thwarted love for an unknown woman--the "immortal beloved".
If personal feelings helped shape his music, Beethoven's power lay in being the musical embodiment of the hopes of a whole generation whose struggle for human emancipation was frustrated.
That is why his music is still great today and should belong to the mass of people, not the elite Beethoven despised.
by SIAN BARRETT
IN HIS new film, Crooklyn, Spike Lee turns his back on controversy and tells the story of the daily life of the Carmichael family through the eyes of the ten year old daughter, Troy.
Set in 1970s Brooklyn, New York, it gives you your fill of the Jackson Five, Afro sheen, peace and love. But you get little sense of the explosive struggles for black freedom, or of the police harassment and racism that marked black lives.
Lee illustrates the confusion of growing up, and there are funny moments of everyday insanity. It is also a change to see two female characters in pivotal roles in a Spike Lee film.
It is an enjoyable film as far as it goes. But it's not quite what you'd expect from Spike Lee and you feel he's only scratched the surface of 1970 urban life in Brooklyn.
IN THE build up to this Thursday's day of action over NHS pay 18 copies of Socialist Worker were sold at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, 20 at Glasgow's Western Infirmary, eight at both Leeds General and St George's in south west London and seven at the Whittington in north London. In Edinburgh 13 were sold at St John's Hospital, five at the Royal Infirmary and 17 at the Royal Edinburgh.
In the Post Office 13 papers were sold at NWDO in central London, five at both Southend and the St Rollox office in Glasgow, four at both Finsbury Park in north London and Wellington Street office in Leeds.
Other sales saw 32 papers sold to striking lecturers in Hackney, 35 at a debate on Clause Four between Arthur Scargill and Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool, 33 on a picket of the Turkish embassy, 22 at a meeting protesting against repression in the Ivory Coast, six to south west London FBU reps, 18 at a Tony Blair meeting in Durham and 15 at a Dennis Skinner meeting in Reigate.
Over the last week 16 people joined the SWP on the FACE demonstration; six in Radford in Nottingham and on the demonstration in Chelmsford in support of the Badgerline strikers; five in Newcastle; two in Wolverhampton, Manchester City Centre, Enfield and Rotherham; one in Hartlepool, Haringey, Finsbury Park, Oxford Cowley, Sheffield Parsons Cross, Bristol Easton, Upper Clapton, Lower Clapton and Manor House.
WHAT IS at stake in the debate over Labour's Clause Four was vividly illustrated by a meeting in Hartlepool in the north east of England last Sunday.
Around 250 people crammed into the room to hear miners' leader Arthur Scargill defend the present clause, which commits the party to common ownership of industry and services.
He was opposed by Peter Mandelson, Labour MP for Hartlepool and previously Labour's campaign organiser.
Mandelson supports the proposed new Clause Four with its talk of "the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition".
It was an audience which desperately wanted to hear an alternative to the Tories and listened with great attention for some hope in an area of high unemployment and low wages.
Arthur Scargill said that the top 20 companies had recorded profits of £31 billion in 1994 and that the money should have been used for schools, hospitals and jobs rather than going into the pockets of shareholders and bosses.
He added that "it was Margaret Thatcher who said in 1974 that her mission was to wipe socialism off the agenda of British politics. Now it was a Labour leader who was trying to ditch Clause Four and socialism from the agenda of the Labour Party.
"If the new clause is accepted the party will be committed to the capitalist system. We will be indistinguishable from the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
"The new clause goes against everything that has kept me in the party. Look who supports getting rid of the present clause--Rupert Murdoch supports ditching it, so does Paddy Ashdown, so does John Major.
"It's wrong to spend money on defence rather than the health service. We need fundamental and irreversible change and that means keeping Clause Four."
In reply Mandelson launched the sort of crude anti-socialist tirade normally found in the Daily Express.
He alleged that the supporters of Clause Four were the sort of people "who want to take away your property, to take away your houses and nationalise Marks and Spencer. Imagine! No Marks and Spencer, no Tesco's, no Asda!
"If the old clause were ever implemented, your savings, homes and jobs would fly out the window."
Mandelson was met with angry murmurs and some heckling as he insisted that Labour stood for "equality of opportunity and lifting up, not levelling down"--words close to how Thatcher defined her politics.
In his summing up he was reduced to attacking "outsiders" (from as much as 15 miles away!) who had "packed the meeting" and ranting about "Teesside Trotskyites".
His only argument that struck home with the audience was that Labour had to be in government to do anything and that this required adapting to "changed circumstances".
Questions from the floor included demands to know why the new clause did not mention full employment and whether the market could really be expected to deliver social justice.
After the debate John Taylor, chair of Redcar Constituency Labour Party, told Socialist Worker, "I was appalled that Mandelson said he did not support renationalising the privatised utilities. It is conference policy after all.
"People like that should not be in the Labour Party."
Jennifer Evans, a local health worker, said, "It was a cheek for Mandelson to say the left had lost all the elections since 1979. He was in charge of the disastrous campaign strategy."
John Young, an AEEU union steward at Hartlepool power station, said, "I don't want to see a Labour government carrying out Tory policies."
And David Heron, a signal worker, said, "The railways should be kept in public ownership. Labour should say now it would renationalise the whole of the network."
The debate showed clearly that Blair's supporters are on a crusade to push Labour away from working class politics.
Many Labour members and supporters are appalled at such moves but feel they must grudgingly go along with Mandelson.
It is up to genuine socialists to show that there is a real alternative to Blair--in struggle, solidarity and standing by your principles.
THIS WEEK Labour:
Announced that a Labour government would relax media cross-ownership regulations and allow Rupert Murdoch's union busting News Corporation to keep all its newspapers.
Disclosed it would no longer oppose the sell off of the National Grid.
Indicated it was no longer opposed in principle to takeovers of regional electricity companies--thereby clearing the way for bigger and more oppressive monopolies.
A BATTLE is developing to commit Labour to a specific figure for its proposed minimum wage. But union leaders are simultaneously criticising Tony Blair and backing off from a confrontation.
At the last election Labour said it would introduce a minimum wage based on a formula which would now produce a figure of around £4.15 an hour.
But Blair, fearful that such a "high" level would upset bosses, says he will not set a precise figure. He wants to consider it "in the light of economic circumstances".
Trade union leaders like John Edmonds of the GMB and Bill Morris of the TGWU have repeatedly called for Labour to "mix some concrete with the rhetoric" and set a level which would benefit low paid workers.
This week the TUC both restated its support for a figure--and then said that it was impossible to say precisely what the figure should be.
It says its research has "discovered" that the formula could arrive at anything from £3.21 to £4.15--and the TUC is likely to go for something in between.
Tony Blair, and his business backers, know that the lower figure would mean no rise at all for some 3.75 million people.
Alan Jinkinson, head of the UNISON union, insists that he will continue to press for a £4 plus figure.
Union activists should pass motions demanding that Labour sticks to at least £4.15 and tell their delegates to the TUC minimum wage conference on 6 July to accept nothing less.
LABOUR IS setting up a Commission on Wealth Creation. But instead of looking at the concerns of workers, it will be stuffed with bosses.
Sir Christopher Harding will be a leading member. He is chairman of insurance group Legal and General and of services conglomerate BET.
Before that he was a chairman of British Nuclear Fuels, a post to which he was appointed by the Tories.
For more than 20 years he was a director of Hanson, one of the biggest donors to the Conservative Party.
Jack Cunningham, Labour's trade and industry spokesperson, has consulted the bosses' CBI organisation about the initiative.
The Financial Times comments, "Labour under Mr Tony Blair is conducting a charm offensive on British industry. Mr Blair has been hosting breakfasts with leading industrialists and he and Mr Cunningham regularly consult Mr Howard Davies, director general of the CBI."
Courting businessmen is a disastrous strategy. Christopher Haskins, the chairman of Northern Foods, is perhaps the best known of "Labour's capitalists".
He was a member of the party's Commission on Social Justice.
That did not stop Northern Foods sacking another 2,200 people last week on top of 1,250 redundancies already announced.
ONE HUNDRED and fifty firefighters demonstrated outside London Fire Brigade's headquarters last Thursday against proposals to introduce dismissal for sickness.
The FBU is facing a massive onslaught. Jobs, pensions and duty systems are all under attack. If London's campaign is to be successful, then the rank and file must be mobilised. Linking local attacks to what is going on nationally is the key.
We need leaflets and posters, meetings on every watch and station and a ballot for industrial action.
A MASS meeting of 70 retained--part time--firefighters in Suffolk voted overwhelmingly for strike action last Wednesday.
The council is attempting to push through a £433,000 cut which means the removal of four retained fire engines and 12 retained firefighters being made redundant.
In Suffolk there are 420 retained firefighters with 260 full time firefighters.
"The retained are well angry," a local firefighter told Socialist Worker. "They can see the service being messed up."
A series of meetings for all Suffolk firefighters are planned before a ballot is held.
THE THREAT of a strike vote by Derbyshire firefighters has forced the Labour council to think again about the cuts.
The fire brigade chief officer has been told by the council to come up with new recommendations about how cuts can be made.
Locally firefighters have run a campaign which included a 1,000 strong march. Local firefighters are set to ballot for a series of one hour strikes.
THIS SATURDAY sees a National Union of Journalists demonstration in Sheffield, where NUJ reps at the Sheffield Star have been disciplined for defending basic safety standards at work.
Journalism students in South Yorkshire are finding that the tactics used by employers against the NUJ are spreading into the colleges.
At Sheffield's Stradbroke College the local NUJ branch has been told a meeting initiated by students was "unauthorised" and that the NUJ will not be allowed to address students in future.
A similar attempt was made at Barnsley College. Students have responded by organising to sign up altogether to the NUJ.
UNION DRIVE 95. This Saturday, 1 April. Assemble 12.30, Paternoster Square, Sheffield. Speakers include Arthur Scargill, NUM President.
Transport details: phone NUJ on 0171 278 7916.
THERE IS one week to go in the GPMU print union ballot over a new national agreement with bosses' federation BPIF.
The workplace ballot closes on 6 April. GPMU members should be calling workplace meetings to reject the deal.
It proposes a 3.65 percent rise on the basic rate. But, as a GPMU member from East Anglia says, "Most people aren't on the basic rate, so it's really a wage cut. It certainly doesn't cover the rises in the cost of living."
In return the GPMU is conceding flexibility to the employers.
This is at a time when there is a real pick up in the industry. The BPIF itself says that "some companies at least are doing very well."
This is all the more reason to reject the GPMU deal and fight for better pay and conditions of work.
FOLLOWING AN almost unanimous strike vote, workers in the RRAES section at the Rolls Royce plant in Coventry are planning to strike on Friday and Monday.
They are also implementing an overtime ban over pay and annualised hours.
Management at Ansty got a taste of shop floor anger when workers walked out on three consecutive days in response to the AEEU convenor's facility time being halved.
Unfortunately this show of strength was repudiated by the national leadership.
Shop floor activists should push to make the action indefinite alongside trying to spread the action.
THE FIRST cases brought in Yorkshire under the Criminal Justice Act have been dropped against Nick Harvey and Richard Herrero. They were arrested protesting against the felling of 20 trees to make way for a Morrisons supermarket in Huddersfield.
The charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service following a determined campaign. A demonstration outside the two's court appearance was supported by over 200 people.
This is a tremendous victory which shows that the act can be beaten.
THE TRIAL of four men charged with attacking black teenager Marlon Thomas opened this week in Bristol.
A year ago Marlon and a number of other black teenagers were subjected to a brutal racist attack at the Easter Fair by a gang of about 20 fairground workers.
Marlon is still unconscious and critically ill, though stable.
The four defendants are charged with grievous bodily harm with intent and violent disorder.
Anti-racist campaigners in Bristol are still angry that the original attempted murder charges were dropped and that only four of the gang have been brought to trial.
FIVE HUNDRED students demonstrated in Exeter last Wednesday against grant cuts.
FOLLOWING THE resignation of the governors at Newbold Community School, Derbyshire county council has sent in its local officer and insisted on up to seven redundancies.
He has also suggested that the school's supply cover budget be upped from £10,000 to £40,000 because "there will be a lot of stress" in the school next year.
Staff and parents are very angry and are continuing a very active campaign.
At another local school, Dranfield, the governors voted this week to resign by a majority 11 to seven vote rather than implement drastic cuts.
The remaining seven will also resign this week if Derbyshire refuses to allow them to set a "two year deficit budget".
Governors at Anthony Gell School have set a deficit budget, refusing to make any redundancies.
Teachers at Brookfield school who have mounted an excellent campaign since December got a nasty shock this week.
Their headteacher argued the governors should go for a cuts package and persuaded them to vote nine to seven to "lose" 17 teachers.
If the cuts go through, the school will have lost 27 teachers in two years.
The Brookfield staff responded angrily, voting unanimously to continue the campaign.
This week Brookfield and Newbold organised a 200 strong protest outside a local post office. Protesters bought lottery tickets claiming, "Education funding is a lottery."
The chair of education got an angry reception when he turned up.
Following a 73 percent vote for action by Derbyshire teachers there will be widespread strike action and local rallies on Wednesday 5 April.
The teachers' NUT union locally also voted to demand a ballot for extended strike action and class size action. An urgent priority now is to link up all the school based action.
NOTTINGHAM: Two Notts schools, Haywood Comprehensive and Alderman Derbyshire, have both set illegal budgets in protest against the cuts and are encouraging other schools to do the same.
Haywood governors have offered to speak at other schools. On Thursday there is a public meeting at Haywood.
Next Tuesday Notts NUT is due to strike and have a march, meeting at 11am at the Victoria Embankment and marching across the river to County Hall.
WOLVERHAMPTON: Cuts threatening Regis School in Wolverhampton mean that five out of 60 teachers and four out of 14 non-academic staff face the sack.
The staff planned to lobby the governors' meeting this Tuesday to demand the setting of a needs related budget.
BRADFORD: Angry protests by parents, teachers and school governors have forced Bradford council to back off from closing Leaventhorpe Middle School.
Other places still face the axe in £18 million spending cuts.
TAVISTOCK: 1,000 people marched through Tavistock in Devon against education cuts last Saturday.
SOUTH YORKSHIRE: Teachers in Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham have all been balloted for strike action on 5 April. So far governors at 16 Sheffield schools have set needs budgets.
MANCHESTER: The result of the ballot on half day strike action by members of NUT teaching union in Poundswick Junior School on next Wednesday, 5 April, was expected this Wednesday.
Members of the NAS/UWT teaching union in the school are now also balloting for action. Teachers are demanding a special needs teacher for the school.
The school's governors were meeting this week to discuss the offer of extra funding from the council.
CAMDEN: Around 80 parents, governors and teachers attended the first meeting of FACE in Camden, north London, last week.
It was agreed to step up pressure on the Labour run council which wants to axe £1.2 million from education.
A FACE meeting at Primrose Hill primary school, Camden, last week heard the acting headteacher warn of up to £60,000 cuts.
The meeting voted unanimously to support the governors if they set a budget based on the school's needs.
OVER 200 staff, students and supporters of Hackney Downs School lobbied the special education committee meeting of Hackney council in north east London last Tuesday. The committee met to consider the proposal of closure.
The authority has waged a constant campaign against the school in the last two months, exerting every effort to ensure that the Labour leadership would get the result it wanted.
As a result the Labour leadership won the vote on closure by 14 to one.
The case will now be passed on to Gillian Shephard for a further two months.
Staff at the school are still solid and will now be looking at what response can be made, specifically at a combination of strike action and challenging the council legally.
Meanwhile Hackney teachers are currently waiting for a strike date for a ballot for action over the loss of the £822 London Allowance.
TEACHERS IN Ealing, west London, were set to strike this Thursday over government cuts in funding for Section 11 teachers, who teach children whose first language is not English.
In Ealing 40 Section 11 jobs are going, with a possible 12 compulsory redundancies.
Despite the three to one vote for action there was a low turnout of teachers voting.
Six London branches of the NUT were balloted for a one day strike, but other action planned has been called off.
Teachers in ten Croydon schools voted overwhelmingly for action but the council has now extended the contracts of three teachers who were due to be sacked.
It has also agreed that in future Section 11 teachers will be put on permanent contracts.
Lewisham council in south London has also backed down from sacking teachers.
But union officials, for example in Tower Hamlets, east London, have called off the one day strike because of a low turn out in the ballot despite big yes votes for action.
"We have lost 150 Section 11 jobs in Tower Hamlets in the last year," says one teacher. "We should be taking action."
It is clear that many Section 11 teachers are demoralised at the way the service is being butchered.
"It is our national union leaders who have got to take the blame," says a Southwark teacher. "No one thinks they are serious about leading a fight."
A LOBBY was planned for this Thursday in support of three NUT reps in Trafford, Manchester. They were due to appear before a disciplinary hearing of the union, charged with selling Socialist Worker and giving out leaflets after a union AGM.
An open letter calling for an end to this witch hunt has received widespread support.
Messages of support: Christine Gilligan, c/o Lostock High School, Selby Road, Stretford, Manchester M32 9PL.
FIFTY teachers took part in a lobby of Durand primary school in Stockwell, south London, last Thursday. One teacher remains sacked and another suspended for refusing to change their contracts.
Messages of support: c/o NUT office, Lawn Lane Centre, Lawn lane, Vauxhall, London SW8.
HUNDREDS OF Sefton council workers marched through Bootle on Merseyside on Tuesday lunchtime in defence of their UNISON branch secretary, Nigel Flanagan.
The hung council is planning to sack Nigel when his contract runs out on Friday.
Nigel was one of the Sefton Two, fined in the High Court last year for leading a successful but illegal strike against privatisation.
Most members of Sefton UNISON see the council's refusal to renew Nigel's contract or redeploy him as victimisation for his union activities.
If the council gets away with sacking Nigel it will be a blow to every trade unionist who wants to fight.
Tuesday's demonstration, which was attended by delegations from other UNISON branches around the country, was followed by a lobby of a council meeting the same evening.
Sefton UNISON members plan to ballot on action if the council does not back down and redeploy Nigel.
AN OVERTIME ban by nearly 1,000 manual workers in the Environment Services Department at Hackney council, north east London, has forced managers to back down over plans to increase the working week from 35 hours to 40.
A mass meeting last Tuesday morning voted to maintain the overtime ban in the face of the Labour council's disgraceful attempt to break it by calling in private contractors to scab last weekend.
But a further mass meeting last Wednesday voted to accept a deal which took the increase in hours and immediate threat of agency workers "off the table".
Unfortunately the deal made the unnecessary concession of agreeing with pilot schemes to increase productivity.
A ballot has been requested from UNISON in case the threat to hours is reintroduced.
Escalation to strike action could have forced the council to withdraw its attacks, including the productivity pilots completely.
BIRMINGHAM: Around 400 people marched through Birmingham on Saturday in protest against local government funding cuts.
Birmingham council is making £45 million of cuts this year as a result of government funding cuts.
Unfortunately a ballot by Birmingham's UNISON council workers' union for a one day strike against the cuts across the city on 4 April was narrowly lost.
But the 43 percent who voted for action show the possibility of resistance as the impact of the cuts works its way through.
BRENT: Around 200 angry parents lobbied Brent town hall over the closure of four nurseries.
The nurseries were to close in two weeks as part of a cuts package by the Tory council.
The Tories were forced to defer the closures for six months.
DEVON: The ballot for strike action throughout Devon County Council has been lost.
There is still a great deal of anger across the authority but UNISON officers have done next to nothing to argue for a yes vote in the ballot.
Members of the GMB and the NUT locally are still awaiting ballot results that were to have tied strike action in with UNISON.
The threat of compulsory redundancies is now very real. A second ballot, for a rolling programme of up to ten days of strike action across social services, was opened on Monday.
Local meetings in every district and contact with every member are essential in the next week if strike action is to be won.
Devon FIGHTBACK Against the Cuts Campaign has called a regional conference for stewards and activists on 20 May in Plymouth. For details phone 01752 567354.
SOMERSET: Council workers, members of UNISON, in Somerset have voted against a one day strike against cuts.
The ballot was lost by around a two to one majority with about half of those eligible to vote doing so.
Members of the Community and Youth Workers Union in Somerset backed a strike in their ballot, and are now deciding whether to go ahead.
The UNISON ballot was hit by the fact that teachers' unions decided not to ballot on joining the planned day of action.
The council still plans up to £20 million of cuts.
DERBYSHIRE: Ashbrook hostel, a hostel for people with learning difficulties, is being axed as a result of a social services cuts package in Derbyshire of £7.6 million.
The Labour council claims this is a progressive move towards care in the community.
However it is clearly motivated by financial pressures and has been actively opposed.
We need a mass campaign to persuade the county council social services committee not to implement these cuts.
The residents of the hostel plan to link with Newbold Community School, where the governors resigned in a body rather than sack teachers.
ROTHERHAM LABOUR council are attacking the facility time of officers of the GMB and UNISON unions in the council as part of this year's budget.
Union members have petitioned around every council workplace and collected hundreds of signatures.
They plan to lobby a meeting of the Labour group on the council this Tuesday and full council meeting on Wednesday.
Tuesday 4 April 12-1pm
Old St Andrews House, Regent Road, Edinburgh
called by Strathclyde and Lothian UNISON
THE Chelmsford bus dispute is at a crucial stage.
The 105 Eastern National workers, sacked last November after going on a half day strike, need the support of every trade unionist.
If they lose their fight to get reinstated then it will be a green light for bosses of the big bus companies to try and drive the Transport and General Workers Union out of the industry.
Eastern National buses is owned by the third largest bus company in the country--Badgerline.
It is one of seven companies that now control 60 percent of the bus industry since Tory deregulation in 1986.
Badgerline runs huge fleets including South Wales Transport, Yorkshire Rider and Bristol City Line.
The Chelmsford workers are pitted against a national company which is using all its resources to win.
When the Chelmsford workers gave seven days notice of intention to strike, Badgerline used the time to get scabs from around the country to Chelmsford.
At the same time a few miles a