By Seán Burns
2023 LOOKS set to be marked by a renewed upswing in industrial action as more strike ballots are being returned successfully. The National Education Union (NEU) in Britain, as well as Scottish teachers are joining the strike action. Likewise the ongoing struggles in Royal Mail, health and the Universities are set to continue. This is no surprise as the ongoing pressure on workers’ pockets continues to mount as high inflation and interest rates hit working-class people.
The fact that inflation looks set to halve by the end of the year will provide little comfort to workers when wages have not met rising inflation. Energy costs increased by 70% last year, while food costs rose by 11.6%. The Tories’ response has been wholly inadequate cost of living payments, which welcome, barely scratch the surface given the depth of this crisis.
They have refused to seriously tackle the rampant profiteering by the likes of big energy companies pulling in over £16 billion in profits last year. Instead, the Tories have laid bare their intentions of taking fire at working-class people and the trade union movement by attempting to demonise workers on strike and introduce legislation that would make strike action ineffective – by introducing minimum service levels and al-
lowing the use of agency staff to break pickets.
Co-ordinate the strikes
It is in this context that the TUC has announced a day of “events” to “protect the right to strike” on 1 February. The TUC’s General Secretary launched the events stating: “We will call on the general public to show support for workers taking action to defend their pay and conditions, to defend our public services and to protect the fundamental right to strike.” It is positive that there is some resistance to the Tories’ attempt to introduce this legislation – beyond a lacklustre legal challenge – but what is notably absent is a call to coordinate the strike action.
125,000 Royal Mail and Post Office workers, 50,000 rail workers, 100,000 civil service workers, 30,000 ambulance workers, 100,000 nurses, 70,000 university workers and 60,000 Scottish teachers will have active strike ballots on that day. At the very least the call for those workers to time their action to be on the same day would drastically increase the impact of the action against the Tories, but also crucially assist the individual disputes in securing victories by strengthening the effectiveness of each action. We are stronger when we strike together.
Attempts to justify this mis-leadership from the TUC have amounted to, in effect, an appeal to the establishment
to be reasonable. The Tories have made clear that they are not reasonable nor willing to concede a fair deal to workers. Instead, as they have illustrated in the health service and rail disputes, they are intent on an ideological crusade to maximise profit and curb workers' rights to organise by breaking the backs of the unions.
In a similar vein, the TUC General Secretary has downplayed calls for a general strike. The Financial Times quoted him saying, “it would make little sense to groups as disparate as teachers and physiotherapists who were worried about pay, but hardly inclined to militancy.” Such a view is the opposite of reality!
Workers across the board, in every sector are facing the same issues: pay not
matching inflation, intransigent employers refusing to give an inch, and a hostile Tory government. Moreover, they are more often on strike at the same time. The coming together of these disputes, and others that may arise, in a 24hour general strike would be an immensely powerful stand by and for working people. The Tories recognise this fact even if the TUC leadership does not.
The alternative strategy of the TUC General Secretary would appear to be along the lines of ‘wait for Labour’. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions strategy is no different 'wait for stormont return.' Trade union activists must come together to discuss how to coordinate
strike action and maximise the effectiveness of their actions. This should include pressuring the leaderships of individual unions to cooperate in and across sectors.
Crucially, we must push for a strategy that seriously confronts the Tories and raises demands that will deliver a lasting change for workers, including inflation-linked pay rises and the repeal of anti-union laws. Adjacent to a serious industrial strategy, a political strategy instead based in building a new party for working-class people that is based on the struggles of workers, and accountable to them, and crucially, armed with anti-sectarian and socialist politics that can challenge the crisis-ridden capitalist system and its representatives.
their wishes. 80% of Unionist voters support the DUP’s stance of not returning to the Assembly or Executive without significant changes to the protocol and a significant section believes that it should only be returned to Stormont if the protocol is entirely scrapped. The increased activity on the party of loyalist paramiltaries is a serious warning about the risk of violence.
Similarly the proposals from the “center for the union” backed by the DUP, TUV and key loyalist figures amount to moving the responsibility down the road by placing the responsibility for enforcing entry into the EU markets on the southern government. Despite options around utilising technology this would ultimately require some degree of increased monitoring and policing of the north/south border which would not be acceptable to the vast majority of people in Ireland particularly catholics in the north.
By Kevin HenryHIS YEAR marks twenty five years since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreeement. While marking an end to the violence of the troubles, the peace process has been based on instiutionalising sectarianism. Its reliance on bringing together sectarian leaders at the top meant that Stormont was always crisis ridden and at times of polarisation the institut ions collapsed. The
T
current DUP boycott of the institutions until action is taken against the Brexit Northern Ireland protocol is a reflection of much deeper processes. This includes a demographic shift and the prospect of increased instability for the future of the United Kingdom.
The prospect of a deal between the EU and the UK is currently being talked up with a new agreement around data sharing and talk of fewer checks from EU officials. It is possible
for the EU and UK to cobble together a deal but the real question is would such a deal be acceptable to unionists and the broader protestant population in the north without alienating Catholics? In part, the problem is that the opposition to the protocol is not primarily about checks but the psychological effect of having a border that divides Northern Ireland from Britain and creates the sense among the Protestant population of being coerced into a united Ireland against
If the Assembly is not restored it will raise the question of what happens next. The British government proposes fresh elections but that would likely return an even more polarised result than previously. The idea of ‘direct rule’ - i.e. rule from Westminster - would not be acceptable to Catholics who see the Tories as having no mandate in Northern Ireland. “Joint authority” between London and Dublin would be unacceptable to protestants. Either option risks inflaming sectarianism.
The history of Northern Ireland is not just one of sectarian division but of powerful movements that united working people, including movements that took on the bigots and cut across division. Today the workers’ movement must act to do the same, starting with coordinating the industrial struggles. Rather than demand a return to the status quo of Stormont, a program of action should be developed, including opposing attempts by Tories to make workers in Northern Ireland pay for the political crisis through vicious cuts. It also means the trade union movement should not wait for further escalation by sectarian forces. Unions currently engaged in struggles should organise anti-sectarian conferences to discuss how we can build an alternative to challenge the sectarian status quo including clearly opposing any “solution” to the border question that would inflame sectarianism. This means clearly opposing any “solution” that would harden a north-south border in anyway but also likewise opposing the Irish sea border.
Most importantly it means there is an urgent need to build an alternative basing itself on workers and young people in all working-class communities with anti-sectarian and socialist politics. An alternative that strives to unite people in common struggle against this rotten capitalist system and find solutions to issues that divide people on the basis of mutual respect and solidarity.
By Eoin Dawson
THE DEPTH of the crisis in the NHS is difficult to overstate. While bosses have talked of "recovery plans" and politicians of "building back better", health and social care services have continued to crumble. The reality is that services have stagnated at the limited level of delivery provided during COVID and those who do not require urgent or emergency care sit on ever lengthening waiting lists. The NHS is no longer a universal service, it is an urgent and emergency care service.
This crisis has been intentionally caused by the utter depletion of health service resources. Successive Tory and Stormont governments have frozen wages and cut funding. They have also facilitated a parallel process of privatization, with more private individuals leeching resources from the NHS than ever. Trust bosses have pursued an increasingly bullish and bureaucratic management style, ignoring the advice and warnings of those who know the service best - the workers. These processes have brought the NHS to the brink.
Politicians call for "radical reform" of the NHS. What most mean by this, is speeding towards the end goal; the complete privatisation of health and social care. The Tories claim there is a "black hole" in the budget that cannot suffer fair wages for health and social care workers. They ask "how much it will cost the taxpayer", but never question whether the wealthiest are paying their fair share. The Tories threaten that a 10% public sector pay rise will result in a £1000 tax bill per household.
This economic dishonesty ignores Office of Budget Responsibility figures and the fact that a significant proportion of any pay rise would return to government coffers in tax and national insurance. They also threaten that increased health service wages will fuel inflation, ignoring that wages were largely stagnant, but inflation has run rampant anyway. There is more than enough wealth in society to pay workers a fair wage. The decision to deny NHS workers is a political one.
Investment in fair pay is the first step towards truly radically reforming the NHS. An inflation-busting pay rise is not only affordable, but necessary to stem the tide of workers leaving the service and to reverse this trend by
attracting people to take up vacant posts. Further investment is required to increase the number of training spaces, and create additional training pathways which would allow for career progression. Finally, raising bursaries to a real living wage, commensurate with
the work done by students on placement, would begin the process of finally filling the thousands of vacant posts that leave existing staff stretched beyond any reasonable limit.
Due to the state the NHS is in, measures such as these will take time to
take effect. Therefore emergency measures are needed to make best use of what resources are currently available in health and social care. Such measures should include enhanced rates of pay in areas that are in severe crisis to encourage staff to remain in post rather than leaving for better pay elsewhere. This would also help to address some of the issues created by the increasing use of employment agencies. Enhanced rates could also be used to compensate staff who are redeployed - an increasingly likely prospect given the depth of the crisis in some areas. Should management pursue a redeployment policy, workers and their unions must demand that these decisions are taken democratically by those who understand the service best - the workers. This democratic control would also act as a bulwark against the inevitable attempts to make any temporary closures permanent. Finally, emergency measures should include the curtailment of the private sector and seizure of private sector hospitals and equipment as necessary, without compensation for profiteer owners. This would end the current uncoordinated and unfair delivery of procedures for those who can afford it, while others wait.
staff. That they didn't do this shows again that their agenda is opposed to the interest of health workers and the NHS!
Rally broader support
By Ann OrrTHE NHS celebrates its 75th birthday this year. This milestone comes at a time when the fight is on for decent wages and, crucially, for safe staffing in other words: for the entire concept and existence of the NHS.
Effective and co-ordinated action
Health workers themselves know best what action is most effective to put pressure on Trust management and the government. The lack of real coordination by health unions is a serious problem that must be overcome so we can win. It is also necessary to de -
velop a plan of action which seeks to maximise the effectiveness of industrial action rather than pull our punches by spacing action out over time. We should utilise all tools in our arsenal from effective work to rules (where people refuse tasks that are not part of their contract), to lunchtime protests to coordinated action involving multiple unions to prolonged strikes. Alongside union wide strategies, this requires workplace and regional discussions to plan action and decide on derogations. To be effective, work to rule measures for example need to be fully discussed, prepared and jointly implemented. If you work in the NHS an important step is to
discuss these issues with your colleagues and insist on discussions also in your union branch and with colleagues in other unions.
NHS workers are up against not only senior trust managements but also the Tories. They should be left in no doubt that the wage claims submitted by unions are not bargaining strategies but reflect what is needed in the context of the cost of living crisis and stagnation of wages over the last two decades!
It's all of us against the Tories This is also a political struggle because there is a burning need for emergency measures to save the NHS (See above)
It should be highlighted consistently that the NHS has been held up for decades by staff going above and beyond on a daily basis. Alongside the work of informal and unpaid carers it has been this gigantic effort that kept the health service going including during Covid. It is imperative that the blame for the current unsustainable situation is placed squarely with Stormont and Westminster who instead of regularly bemoaning "normal winter pressures" should have taken action to ensure the training of staff and provision of adequate resources to ensure additional health pressures that were clearly foreseen could be managed safely and without adverse pressure on
Working-class people know very well that the NHS must be defended. There is huge support for health and social care workers and that must now be brought into play to back essential industrial action. If the trade unions called a day of action to defend the NHS organising and building for public demonstrations in major cities and towns, they would get a massive turnout. It would be far more difficult for the Tories to push ahead with their plans to privatise the NHS and impossible for them to claim that health workers aren't supported in the wake of such demonstrations. It would also establish again the role of the union movement in fighting to improve the lives of ordinary people across the board.
If you work in the health sector you could suggest that your union initiates discussion with other unions and starts preparations to call such a day of public protests. If you work in a different sector you can suggest your union branch or union support such a call and organise to show solidarity with NHS workers. Socialist Party members in and outside of the NHS will be doing this. If you'd like to discuss how you can help or would like assistance in your workplace, get in touch today!
THE THREAT of water charges is back on the agenda. In a statement regarding the next Northern Ireland budget, Tory Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said that “difficult choices cannot be deferred any longer” and that water charges are one of the options under consideration. It seems that this is an attempt to cajole the DUP back into the Executive, fearing the uproar it would create, particularly amidst the current cost-of-living crisis.
The introduction of domestic water charges was one of a number of neoliberal, pro-corporate measures agreed to in principle by the main Stormont parties in 2002. The aim of such charges is to lay the basis for full privatisation of this essential service so that it can
be run for profit, with Northern Ireland Water becoming a ‘governmentowned company’ in 2007 as a step in that direction. If we look at England and Wales, we see where this leads, with average annual bills now standing around £420.
Undoubtedly, we need to use water efficiently, especially in the context of the capitalist-driven climate crisis. It is nonsense, however, to suggest that ordinary people wilfully waste water. The vast majority of water wastage is caused by our antiquated infrastructure, which has been neglected by successive Westminster and Stormont administrations for decades, despite householders paying for the water service through their rates. The cost of rectifying this problem should not be placed on the shoulders of ordinary people already struggling to make ends meet. Water charges will inevitably hit
working-class families hardest. Investment in water and other essential services should be funded by taking wealth from the super-rich and big business.
The key reason water charges have not yet been introduced here is the threat of mass non-payment, organised primarily by the We Won’t Campaign, in which the Socialist Party played a leading role. In the mid-2000s, the campaign organised grassroots opposition to the charges through community meetings and campaigning across Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 people signed a non-payment pledge, and the campaign won the backing of a number of trade unions. This put the main parties under huge pressure and forced the ‘Labour’ government to shelve the plans, realising they were unworkable and could lead to political upheaval. Similarly, a mass non-pay -
ment campaign forced the scrapping of water charges in the South in 2017, with Socialist Party activists and elected representatives again central to the movement.
Whether they are sitting in Stormont or not, we cannot rely on the DUP, Sinn Féin or the other main parties to block water charges, as shown by their track record of implementing cuts, privatisation, ‘welfare reform’ and so on. The Alliance Party has consistently backed the proposals, and even the Greens have supported ‘progressive’ water charges. If this threat is seriously posed, we need to again build support for mass non-payment in every city, town and village across the North, linked to the power of workers organised in the trade unions, and demand a publicly owned, democratically run and high-quality water service which is free at the point of use.
earlier survey, 9 in 10 hospitality workers reported that they had experienced some form of sexual harassment at work. The inaction of employers and politicians on the question of harassment in hospitality venues has been eye opening.
Across the industry, workers are organising for and winning transformative demands.
Did you know, thanks to the hard work of hospitality workers in Unite, that in some councils in England and Scotland late-night venues must provide free transport home to staff in order to guarantee their license?
Did you know that in a bar in Sheffield, workers in the Bakers union fought for and won a 44% pay rise and an end to zero-hour contracts?
By Callum RobinsonIN A recent announcement, the Education Authority announced severe cuts in funding to youth support services across Northern Ireland. This is part of a broader programme of education cuts. This loss of funding will result in reduced frequency of the groups’ operation, with some becoming open only four days a week.
The coming cuts will not only have a detrimental impact on the development of young people but will cost many workers from these services, with some organisations predicting losses of a quarter of their staff. In what world could it be said that our society rewards hard work when those who have dedicated their career to guiding and protecting young people are being thrown to the side while we live in a society where the super rich are making more profits than ever.
By Amy FergusonAFTER YET another December of messed up sleeping patterns, long frantic work shifts, and 15-minute on-the-clock-meals, the idea of a relaxing January may be off the cards for a significant portion of hospitality workers. The industry has seen itself lurched by crises in recent years, from the impact of the
covid-19 pandemic, declining footfall due to the cost of living crises, and staffing shortages stemming from unsustainable pay and working conditions; many workers are living with the anxiety of financial instability and stress.
A recent Unite Hospitality survey of the working conditions of baristaspart of a new Baristas United campaign - found that 72% believed wages
needed to be higher, 65% believed understaffing to be a vital issue in the workplace, and 49% identified the need to end zero-hour contracts as an urgent priority. It is likely that these issues are, unfortunately, relatable to those across the entire sector whether in bars, kitchens or hotels.
Another issue that, tragically, workers in the industry are united in experiencing is that of harassment. In an
With such victories under the belt, and with the highest support for trade unions in decades, the future is looking bright with the potential for even greater change. However, such change won’t come about by magic, it can only be created by fellow workers in the industry joining their unions, talking to their coworkers about issues you want to see changed, and saying to greedy employers and careless politiciansenough is enough!
The Risk To LGBTQ Youth Cara Friend, NI’s biggest provider of youth groups has announced that it will have to close all of its regional youth services due to the proposed cuts to funding. This is particularly disastrous as LGBTQ youth are at substantially greater risk of damage to their health. These cuts will leave young LGBTQ people isolated and result in real-world damage to the mental wellbeing of thousands, who suffer from feelings of low esteem and social isolation due to the prevalent intolerant attitudes of a portion of our society, which are reflected sharply in our government too. This destruction of support services, which are availed of by many trans young people could not have been timed worse to inflict damage. Over the last few years, we have seen many attacks on trans people, with their scapegoating by the right-wing media utilised to dehumanise and ostracise them from society. The loss of support services coupled with a lack of healthcare is a slow killing by those in power against a group of which they are cruelly intolerant. It must be resisted, young people have already organised protests and even occupations of the Education Authority, if this is built on these vital services could be saved.
IN RECENT weeks the separate murders of Natalie McNally, Ailish Walsh, Bruna Fonseca and Maud Coffey have once again caused grief and anger. These femicides were not only a painful end to 2022 and start to 2023 but also a damning warning of what is to come if we do not challenge the deepening epidemic of gender violence, misogyny and sexism.
2022 was wrought with what felt like an onslaught of almost daily news reports of high-profile rape cases, homophobic murders and attacks, or a new attack on the trans community from the
political establishment or the media.
Women’s Aid has said that the statistics confirm that 2022 was “a terrible year for violence against women in Ireland and globally.” All of the four women who were killed in the North in 2022 were murdered in their own homes.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns played a huge role in exacerbating gender violence (GV), with it being called the ‘shadow pandemic’ by the UN. We now face a global economic crisis which is only predicted to worsen.
Women are always the shock absorbers of economic crises because; women tend to be the primary caregivers within most families, precarious work sectors are
mostly female occupied, and women are the largest group of people reliant on public services. In the context of the expected deep UK-wide recession, the Tories are likely to step up their attacks on the NHS and other vital services. The cutting of emergency and public services means people in violent domestic situations or relationships are less able to leave, further contributing to the rates of interpersonal violence experienced. Women's Aid research last year already identified that financial control is a growing aspect of intimate partner abuse.
On top of this, we have seen the rise of figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan
Peterson normalise violent and misogynistic attitudes. Algorithms on social media target young boys in particular. These online figures and the social media companies who elevate their platforms, are making insane profits by tapping into the insecurities and alienation felt by many young men today due to the chaos of the capitalist system, and it is having incredibly dangerous consequences. The capitalist system, which is based on accumulation of profit of a few individuals, has always relied on and benefited from the oppression of women, and therefore has a vested interest in amplifying all divisions, including by promoting racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, and rigid gender roles. This is also consciously injected to cut across any potential movement of solidarity. The normalisation of the hatred for women in turn normalises the entire spectrum of gender violence, from sexist attitudes and cat calling which is experienced by women and non-binary people on a daily basis, to femicide.
On average, less than 40% of women globally who experience violence will seek help of any sort and less than 10% will report to the police. This is unsurprising when you have stories emerging of women bringing evidence to the police in the UK in 2015 with evidence including voice notes of Andrew Tate admitting to rape, and the police refusing to prosecute on the grounds of there being an ‘ounce of doubt’. The recent
Tories need no introduction; they’re vile, self centred creatures more akin to vampires than people, sucking the life out of ordinary people. Their leadership campaign saw trans rights used as a litmus test to prove how backward their leaders were.
During his leadership campaign, Rishi Sunak ran on the promise of a “manifesto for Women’s rights”, which sounds nice on paper but really amounts to a transphobic dog whistle. This was illustrated by appointment of Kemi Badenoch, an openly antitrans MP to the position of Equalities minister and a party wide writing off of
institutionalised misogyny as ‘Woke Culture.’
The trans community found a rare spark of hope in the face of institutionalised hatred when the Scottish Parliament voted to amend the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), allowing trans people over 16 to self ID as their gender identity without the need to go through the outdated Gender Identity Clinics (GIC’s) across the UK. For context: previously, if a trans person wanted to medically and officially change their gender, they must be referred to their local GIC through their GP. Then,
assuming their GP doesn’t flat out refuse to do so (which is a common occurrence due to institutionalised transphobia, love that for us), they’ll be added to the waiting list for a first appointment, with waiting times ranging from 4 years to 18 years. In fact, the GIC NHS website has openly stated in their statistics that in May 2022, they had only just begun offering first appointments to those added to
their waitlists in January 2018! The current service is failing trans people. But let's say you waited your 4-18 years without killing yourself (tragically another common occurrence), and you finally have your first appointment. Well now you have years of counselling appointments to go through in which you, a trans person, must prove to a cisgender Doctor that you’re "trans enough".
For example, if I, a trans woman, were to attend my assessment at the GIC dressed how I normally dress (charitably referred to as ‘Alternative’), I would be rejected. It wouldn’t matter that I know that I’m a woman, or that I’m trans, or that I’ve been on HRT for over three years; my gender presentation does not fit with an outdated and sexist perspective on womanhood.
All this to say that the decision passed by the Scottish government is a win, albeit a
story of a Met police officer admitting to serial raping and abusing women over the span of two decades and being allowed to continue to work on ‘restricted duties’ despite standing accused of rape is indicative of why we cannot rely on such forces to tackle the issue of GV, never mind solve it.
Yes, we need extensive reform to the judicial system, the police; yes we need adequate funding for housing, public and emergency services. We also need to challenge attitudes, starting with proper sex and relationship education, which is consent based, LGBTQ+ inclusive, and free from religious influence. But we need more than that if we are to eradicate GV. We need mass struggle against sexism, misogyny and the capitalist system as a whole which breeds and perpetuates sexism, misogyny and violence. That these struggles are interlinked is also shown by the fact that a fight for housing, decent living standards including an end to precarious working and decent pay involve taking on the same sections of society who directly benefit from division, exploitation and oppression.
History shows us that the most important drivers of social change are strong and active social movements. Being active in and building campaigns will not only challenge backward attitudes, push back on the rise of misogynists and right wing forces, but will also literally save lives.
By M. Clanahanminimal one for us. But now, Sunak's government has for the first time used legal powers to block this change, serving as a blatant attack on not only trans people, but also attack on democratic right of Scottish people. Even Labour leader Keir Starmer, leader of the ‘opposition’ in Labour has also said that he’d veto the bill, and stating that “16 is too young to know these things”.
But I suppose 16 is plenty old enough to join the Army, eh, Mr Starmer? Too young to live as we are but plenty old enough to die. And we will die, as we have been dying for decades: Failed by governments, a medical establishement, services and often those around us. Hug your trans friends, goodness knows they need it but also get involved in building a movement to bring the about the necessary change we urgently need in attitudes, in service provision and in our lives generally that free all of us from exploitation and oppression.
Collins Dictionary has decided that the word of the year for 2022 is ‘permacrisis,’ because it “sums up just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people.” This word is a paradox. A crisis usually means a painful but brief moment of tension. But in the age of permacrisis, writes MANUS LENIHAN, we get all the pain and tension with no progress, no recovery, no resolution.
WE FACE a range of overlapping crises, each one feeding back into the others, such as the cost of living, climate change, war, and pandemics.
Part of the meaning of ‘permacrisis’ is that the problems are so deep-rooted we can’t even understand them, let alone try to solve them. This part is not true. Obviously, we’re not going to get anywhere without the knowledge of healthcare workers or climate scientists, for example. In that sense, the problems are indeed complicated. But the biggest obstacles to fixing ‘permacrisis’ are political, not technical. They are due to the system, due to things we can change, but only if we are willing to challenge the rule of the powerful and wealthy.
So let’s start the year by breaking down permacrisis into its main aspects, the better to understand and the better to fight back.
There are various ways to try and deal with ‘permacrisis’ in 2023. For example, it is tempting just to ignore politics and look after your own interests as best you can. The biggest problem with that attitude is that we can’t ignore the environ-
ment, because we live in it. At least, we still do at the time of writing.
Summer 2022 was one of wild heat waves and fires. China saw widespread devastation but even in less hard-hit countries like England, firefighters reported they had never seen anything like it. Then winter saw large parts of the US unexpectedly freeze over, and just a few weeks later hundreds of weather stations across Europe announced that it was the warmest January on record (19 degrees in Poland!). Meanwhile in India temperatures have plummeted.
This is the worst example of permacrisis. In a sane world, it would have been prevented decades ago. But the CEOs, billionaires, and world leaders kept on burning those fossil fuels, and they continued to design cities around the car and the plane, all because it was more profitable than making the transition to cleaner energy and public transport. There were significant changes after millions of school students walked out on climate strikes in 2018 and 2019. If it were up to workers and consumers, massive progress could have been made. But it’s not up to us. The real power is in the hands of businesses and the wealthy. It is cheaper to look after their own PR through greenwashing than to actually change things.
Will big banks, industries, and agribusinesses make a transition to sustainable energy in 2023? Unfortunately, not a hope. Will establishment politicians force them to? The most ambitious thing you can expect from the Irish Green Party is that they will find some new way to penalise rural people for driving. But we need truly ambitious and pro-worker measures such as free and expanded public transport, or public ownership of the energy industry.
Another way to try and cope with the stress of ‘permacrisis’ is to fixate on some narcissistic rich guy and have faith that he will solve all our problems with some clever invention. But it’s not easy to keep up that blind faith after 2022. Twitter, Tesla, and Meta suffered disasters. NFTs and cryptocurrencies – digital fool’s gold – collapsed.
2022 was the year inflation spiralled out of control, driven by war, supply chain issues, falling productivity, and profiteering. As we paid double at the fuel pump, Shell’s net income rose from $12.8 billion in 2021 to $30.1 billion in 2022. Similarly BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total, etc. Not content with destroying the planet, they are squeezing the last cents out of us.
It’s broadly accepted that we will see a global recession this year. In fact, the ruling class in the United States is flirting with recession so as to drive down wages. Various public figures have said that “there’s going to need to be increases in unemployment to contain inflation”, and described the rise in unemployment as “really terrific”, “the right direction of travel re jobs”, and “the best reason for hope”.
Why are they taking ghoulish delight in the misery of millions? Because the Covid profits surge has run out of steam, and there is a need for some new source of profit. So now big business owners are using inflation as an excuse to drive down wages.
What might a recession in 2023 mean for us? Whenever a recession comes, our jobs, pay, services and benefits are all sacrificed to ‘restore profitability,’ i.e. to maintain the rich in the manner to which they are accustomed. That’s what happened in Ireland after 2007-8, and what have we got to show for it today? Mass homelessness – 11,542 are now in emergency accommodation – and another recession around the corner.
To sum up, permacrisis in the economic sphere is not all that complicated. The messiahs of the tech sector mostly turned out to be frauds and idiots. Instead of saving the world with clever inventions, the rich are drinking toasts to unemployment and turning housing into a cash cow, which is why kids have to live in hotel rooms. It’s the simplest way to maintain profits.
Another way some people try to cope with permacrisis is by saying ‘we need to look after our own first.’ But to do that you need to exclude and attack most of the human race, including people who are in the same boat as you (or worse) when it comes to jobs, housing, services, etc. And the super-rich members of ‘your own’ remain in charge, and they only ‘look after’ themselves. So all we can ever achieve through ‘looking after our
own’ is to help rich people to stay rich through divide and rule.
Capitalism was supposed to deliver peace and democracy. How many times did we hear that line? But we live in a world that’s growing more divided, violent, and authoritarian. 2022 ended with a bizarre far-right coup plot in Germany and 2023 began with supporters of the far-right Bolsonaro trying to stage a coup in Brazil.
The war in Ukraine, like Covid, came as a shock to most. But it makes a twisted kind of sense in the logic of the new Cold War between the US and China. The United States, the only
country with hundreds of military bases all across the world, is locked in struggle with Chinese imperialism for control of the world’s markets and resources. Likewise, Russian imperialism, which maintains an uneasy but real alliance with China, has sought to aggressively boost its influence and prestige with the brutal invasion of Ukraine. This new Cold War, of course, is a key factor in the economic problems. US politicians claim they are fighting for freedom and democracy; tell that to the Afghans and Iraqis. Russian politicians claim they are fighting for security and the national idea; tell that to the Chechens. That’s their job, as Martin
Luther King said: to trick young people into being scarred or killed on ‘dark and bloody battlefields,’ all for corporate profits and imperial prestige.
Will the Ukraine war end in 2023?
Probably not.
Who will win? That one is easier to answer: Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin...
The fight against imperial aggression is not a con. That is why Ukrainian soldiers have fought better than was widely expected: they are not simply fighting for the corporate interests that rule their country like every other country, nor the geopolitical goals of western imperial-
ism. They are defending their national independence, their homes, and their dignity. Imperialism can be defeated not by bending the knee to some other brand of imperialism, but through the resistance of working people, and through cross-border and cross-community solidarity.
After war, we turn to another biblical horseman: plague.
While Covid thankfully recedes from the headlines in the ‘higher-income’ countries, only one in five are vaccinated in the ‘lower-income’ neo-colonial countries. The failure to vaccinate the people of China will result in disaster now with the collapse of the unsustainable Zero Covid strategy.
Here in Ireland, the hospitals have been overwhelmed by flu and respiratory infections, along with Covid, to the point where the fire service is declaring certain Emergency Departments unsafe.
As we pointed out this time last year, the pandemic was caused by three major factors (and the next pandemic will be caused by the same factors because they haven’t been fixed): (1) the for-profit healthcare industry, which spent billions on marketing instead of research into viruses; (2) the massive encroachment of big business into remote wilderness, shaking loose new pathogens; and (3) the underfunding of health services over decades due to privatisation and austerity.
As long as healthcare is run for profit, and nature is recklessly exploited for profit, and public health systems are neglected, we will see more epidemics and
pandemics in the future. Even before Covid we lived in a world in which diseases that previous generations had nearly wiped out were making a comeback.
The word ‘permacrisis’ invites pessimism. We want to live without fear of war or disease, and to hand down a better world to the next generation. This isn’t much to ask, with all the wealth and technology and know-how that exists. And yet with every passing year, it’s more obvious that the powers-that-be can’t deliver on any of it, because all that wealth, tech, and expertise are chasing profits instead of human welfare.
All the aspects of permacrisis feed into each other. The necessity to end each, and all, has to be seen as part of the struggle to get rid of capitalism – the system responsible for all the major crises in the world. Working-class people are the majority in society, and if united and organised we are a powerful force that can both end this system, and prevent a future of ever instensifying permacrisis. That means a struggle for fundamental, socialist change: change that will see the resources of society taken back from the big corporations, banks and the billionaires, and placed into democratic, collective ownership –from which we can plan the economy to meet the needs of all people and the planet.
The deep malaise facing the system points to the urgency of waging this struggle and winning this change. Tinkering simply won’t suffice. If you agree, join us today.
By Keishia TaylorRECENT YEARS have been marked by a proliferation of what’s been called "doomerism" — the belief that humanity is inevitably destined for misery, destruction, and ultimately extinction. After a cursory examination of the headlines, it is easy to see why. The intractable and all-consuming crises of capitalism are breeding war, pestilence, famine and environmental disasters of biblical proportions, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that fundamental, all-encompassing change is needed if we are to survive. But is this type of change possible? And can it happen before it is too late?
The ruling classes, the business and political establishment, reveal time and again that they are incapable of solving the crises facing working-class people, indeed humanity (including, ultimately, themselves!). The logic of their capitalist system, of competition and expansion, is blocking the global cooperation and planning needed to take on the existential threat of climate change.
So who can take on this threat, and all the other crises we face? Thankfully, there is such a social force: the working class – the multiracial, multigendered, and multinational majority in the world. This is the class that makes society run – producing the products, providing the services, maintaining the infrastructure. Without its physical and mental labour the economy grinds to a halt. This gives it incredible potential power.
But it’s also the force that has brought about all the major political progress of the last 150 years or so. And don’t just take our word for it, even the Washington Post, a right-wing establishment newspaper, reported on a study of 100 years of protests in 150 countries which found that “protest movements dominated by industrial workers outperform all other protest campaigns in bringing about democracy.” It remains the decisive force for progress today, and likewise the only force capable of averting catastrophe in the years ahead.
But there is a real problem of the working class being less organised today, both politically and industrially, and therefore also more atomised. So, can the working class be relied on to act, when it is needed more than ever? These are important questions, which we can’t fully explore in the short article, but the simple answer is: yes!
Uprisings from ‘out of nowhere’
A big reason why the power of the working class is not always obvious to many is that all of the capitalist ideology throughout society tries to hide it,
and present it as, at best, a thing of the past. But unfortunately for them, reality keeps challenging these myths.
The pressure mounting on workingclass people in this world of crisis has led to countless explosions of mass movements in recent years, most notably and powerfully in places like Iran, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Myanmar, Ecuador, India, Sudan, Hong Kong, and now in mainland China, to name a few. But virtually every country is seeing new sections of working-class and young people getting organised and active in some way. Even if only beginning, these can take off quickly in the right circumstances.
Many of the examples above took the ruling classes by complete surprise, as they underestimated the desperation and resentment boiling beneath a seemingly subdued surface. For example, in India, in response to the far right Modi government’s punishing 2020 “Farm Bills,” tens of millions of farmers, transport workers and others marched on Delhi, held a 24-hour strike – one of the biggest in history – and protested for a year against the new agricultural laws, labour laws, and privatisation resulting in a repeal of the Farm Bills.
In neighbouring Sri Lanka last May, provoked by devastating shortages and price hikes – while the corrupt ruling Rajapaksa family enjoyed a lavish life –a ‘Hartal’ general strike involving over 2,000 unions brought the country to a halt. This quickly escalated to a revolutionary situation in which the masses stormed and occupied the Presidential palace and state buildings, and forced the President and Prime Minister to flee.
These uprisings may seem distant to some, but Ireland is certainly not immune from the effects of capitalist crises, nor the political awakenings experienced by many as a result. Indeed, global movements have been reflected here, in the BLM protests or climate strikes in recent years. Just as movements in Ireland, from LGBTQ and abortion rights, to the victory against water charges – in which working-class and young people led the way – had a small but notable impact abroad.
These examples prove the point about the essential role of the working class as the only force for progress today, as well as the only force with the power to challenge the ruling capitalist class, which is leading us to extinction.
Further, they show that when necessary the working class can and will use its power. This alone is not the solution to our problems, it’s just the start, but it shows that it’s virtually inevitable – as crises intensify – that we will see the proliferation of mass struggles of the working class and youth in the 2020s, and even revolutions.
By James McCabe
IN2021, the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report titled Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. Historically, US-based NGOs have steered wide of exposing the full extent of the day-to-day violence and discrimination meted out against Palestinians by the state of Israel. Long deemed a key ally of US imperialism in the Middle East, the Israeli state receives $3.8 billion in military funding from the US government each year. So, the unambiguous condemnation of Israel in the Human Rights Watch report represented a certain watershed.
Nevertheless, Joe Biden released a statement expressing enthusiasm for working with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s (a “friend for decades”) new government. This is just the latest example of the hypocrisy of US imperialism’s supposed defence of “democratic values”. Netanyahu’s new government has been described as the most right-wing, ultra-nationalist and outright racist government in the history of the state of Israel.
A cabinet of racist thugs
Many of the new government ministers from far-right parties are nothing more than bigoted thugs. The new finance minister once called for segregating Is-
raeli maternity wards between Jews and Palestinians because he said that he didn’t want his wife “to be forced to give birth next to an enemy”.
The new minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. In 2007, he was convicted of incitement to racism and of supporting a terrorist organisation. Although only convicted once, he was indicted over 50 times. For years, Ben-Gvir hung a photo in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli-American who in 1994 killed 29 Palestinians at a mosque in Hebron. This is the man who is now responsible
for border police in the West Bank at a time when violence and the killing of Palestinians have already been surging.
In 2022, one of the deadliest years on record, 220 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, including 48 children, according to a report by Middle East Eye
Rise in violent repression
Netanyahu has agreed to advance annexation of the West Bank as part of his coalition deal with ultra-nationalist parties. As it stands, there are almost 630,000 Israeli settlers living in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlers have the
right to vote, access to clean water; the right to carry guns; and to travel into Israel on the motorway whenever they want. All these rights are denied to their Palestinian neighbours, who are increasingly having their homes bulldozed to make way for Israeli settlements.
The inevitably brutal actions of this government could spark a new mass movement of resistance by Palestinians. In May 2021, unprecedented protests erupted in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel which forced the Israeli government into a ceasefire after it launched an attack on Gaza. These protests included a strike of 65,000 Palestinian construction workers. The provocations of the far-right could well spark an organised backlash that they aren’t expecting.
Such a movement could be organised democratically from below based on revolutionary committees of struggle, in the occupied territories and within Israel itself. It could make an appeal to the Israeli Jewish working class – 100,000 of whom protested against the new government’s threat to democratic rights on 14 January – to join it in a struggle to end the disastrous rule of capitalism, and the toxic, racist ideology of its ruling class. It could be the beginning of a struggle to end the rule of this oppressive capitalist system throughout the region and open the way for a revolutionary socialist transformation of society.
JUST EIGHT days into the term of President Lula, far-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro went on a rampage against the "democratic" institutions of Brazil.
In a shocking aping of the infamous ‘January 6th’ events in Washington DC, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building, the Bolsonaro supporters stormed the parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Presidential Palace causing millions in damages.
Funded and supported by powerful and wealthy
The right-wing mob was funded by millionaire backers and supported and aided by sections of the Brazilian state (like in Washington DC, police fraternised and took selfies with the protesters). The plot was well organised with over 100 free busses bringing thousands of Bolsonaro supporters from all across the county. Hotels were paid for, and meals were provided, along with other free supplies such as camping equipment etc.
Bolsonaro and his sons were conveniently in the USA during the attack but even if not directly involved (which they were), they prepared the ground and advocated for such actions, and need to be held accountable. The work-
ers’ movement needs to call for the purging of all reactionary elements from the state and full prosecution of all involved.
An attack such as this was widely predicted. In fact, in August 2022 during the election, a WhatsApp group of Brazilian tycoons was exposed for discussing how a coup would be better for them if Bolsonaro lost, and how they would fund and organise it.
Despite Lula’s strong rhetoric and (limited) actions in the wake of the coup attempt, the working class and oppressed of Brazil can have no faith that his government, which includes three far-right evangelicals, will wage an effective struggle, and must mobilise their own forces to defeat the right. Much of the left, including sections
in the leadership of PSOL (a significant left party), have unfortunately uncritically fallen behind Lula's government. While it is correct to mobilise and defeat the right, Lula's government is one of coalition with the traditional rightwing forces who will not be able and willing to deliver in the face of the growing social crisis and thus can create more opportunities for the far right, and coup attempts in future.
By Finn McKennaSOMALIA IS currently experiencing its worst drought in four decades. According to NASA, the Horn of Africa is suffering its worst drought ever. Somalia has a population of 17 million and just under half are suffering food shortages, with 1.5 million children acutely malnourished. Internal displacement is an ever-growing feature of the disaster, affecting over 1 million people.
Climate change effects
In 2011, 260,000 Somalis perished due to a drought. A similar hellscape is facing the Somali people today unless essential products such as medicine and food are acquired from outside of Somalia, where the earth is scorched and with it livestock and crops turn to dust.
The global CO2 output, which the African continent contributes to the least, is resulting in fundamental shifts in wind and rain patterns off the coast of eastern Africa. The people there are paying a devastating price for the actions of the major industrial and imperialist states, and their pursuit of profit. The rain season has failed to come to Somalia for four consecutive years.
Civil war in the past three decades has seen the almost complete disintegration of the Somali state. The military junta under Siad Barre, which was USSR-aligned in the 1980s before turning towards US imperialism, was ousted by various clan-based rebel militias in the early 1990s. These militias soon thereafter turned the guns on each other. Ever since, a protracted civil war has ensued.
The contending war-lords (some backed by Western imperialists, others are Islamic extremists), are attempting to dominate and control aid as part of their power struggle.
World must respond
Military intervention by surrounding states or anyone else can bring no solutions to the conflagration experienced by Somalia’s people. Nor can any capitalist forces resolve the crisis.
The workers’ and trade union movement internationally must respond to this catastrophe and find ways to transport essential food and medical supplies to the Horn of Africa. And also, crucially, to support a movement of working-class and poor people that breaks with the rule of capitalism and imperialism as the only way out of this horror.
This comes alongside other Tory attacks on democratic rights especially targeting the climate movement, such as the Public Order Bill which would give police the power to shut down protests if they "might" cause "widespread disruption".
Recognising their system is in crisis, the Tories and the ruling class that they represent are afraid of the potential for explosive movements of working class and young people. As all economic forecasts point to a recession, they are gearing up for a protracted period of attacks on workers living standards and hope to score an early victory through this legislation.
gles in Britain. The weakening of democratic rights of workers in Britain to strike therefore is an attack on the effectiveness of strike action here. It is also part of global trends which have seen, for example, the Biden administration attack the rights of railway workers to strike. Trade union leaders in Northern Ireland would make a criminal mistake to say that attacks on the rights of workers in Britain to strike dont have serious implications for us here and therefore not join efforts to oppose them.
By Chris StewartHORRIFIED BY an upsurge of working class people taking strike action amidst the cost of living crisis, the Tory government has declared war on the democratic rights of workers and their ability to strike.
The "minimum service levels" bill requires workers in certain sectorshealth, education, transport etc - to
provide minimum levels of service during a strike. The "minimum service" would be decided by the Secretary of State - essentially giving the government the ability to make effective strike action illegal for a whole host of public sector workers, allowing bosses to dismiss workers for breaking these regulations.
Sunak is carrying on the attacks on trade unions of his predecessors. In 2016, the Cameron government
brought in an undemocratic industrial action ballot threshold, meaning that at least 50% of members have to vote, with a simple majority not sufficient for a mandate for strike action. While in the past this has been a huge blockade to strike action, the raw anger of hundreds of thousands of workers today means that most ballots are smashing this threshold - meaning the Tories feel the need to further attack the right to strike.
While this particular legislation will not apply to Northern Ireland, its passing would represent an important warning to workers here. The DUP's Sammy Wilson was one of two nonTory MPs to vote in favour of the bill. In 2022, MLAs from the DUP, UUP and Alliance voted down a bill from Gerry Carroll which would have removed anti-trade union laws introduced by Thatcher. It cannot be ruled out that similar legislation could be brought in to attack workers here at some stage.
If allowed to be implemented it would also have implications for many striking workers here are involved in. As Royal Mail, NHS workers, PCS members and lecturers will know, strikes here are linked to broader strug-
“ASTRIKE is not just for Christmas”, read defiant placards across the hundreds of Communication Workers Union (CWU) “Vote Yes” gate meetings in Royal Mail delivery offices, which have been taking place over January. It is clear that the mood amongst the majority of postal workers is defiant to management’s failed gambit that 18 days of strike action would break the back of CWU members. CEO, Simon Thompson’s strategy of waiting out the strikes hoping a media onslaught, building financial pressures and the use of scab and agency workers would result in acceptance of their derisory “best and final offer” from talks in January.
Last year’s two national Royal Mail ballots ‘expire’ under the Tories’ draconian anti-trade union laws on 19th January (Pay) and 17th February (Change) respectively. A new coordinated ballot, encompassing all the issues in dispute will close on the 16th February. This ballot must be won, so that the “YES” vote is maximised. It is a credit to CWU reps and members that they did not allow the usual conservatising process to take place where workers are told to vote in isolation from the argu-
ments of their reps and colleagues. Instead, the vibrant campaigns of the pre vious ballot must be built on with discussions opened up in every work place on how a knock-out blow can be delivered to management. The indus trial action of December, pulled an in transigent management to the table and moved them after they stated they would move no further.
The defence of our postal service as we know it, an inflationary pay rise and the scrapping of planned attacks on jobs & conditions can be won. An es calation of the action starting with a strong “YES” vote giving fresh man date, maintaining and building on ef fective pickets and taking up the use of scab & agency labour is the starting point. For this to be most effective, it must be democratised further with local strike/picket committees elected and given full support from the CWU leadership to ensure members are fully informed, involved in deciding and bought in to what fighting strategy is needed to win. The fight is on in Royal Mail, not just amongst CWU members engaged in action to defend their jobs, conditions and fight for better pay –but also for the whole labour move ment as bosses across the public and private sector pay attention to this dis pute to see which tactics prevail.
Some trade union leaders have indicated that they plan to take the government to court over these new laws. However we must be clear that the courts represent the interests of the bosses, and they will be under a massive pressure to keep this legislation.
The trade union movement needs to respond to these attacks with a mass campaign, bringing together the millions of workers voting for strike action and coordinating the action to have the biggest impact possible. The 1st of February will see a strike action of teachers, university staff, civil servants and train drivers - and the TUC have called this a national day of protest against the new laws. This can and should be the springboard towards further general, coordinated strike action across the UK needed to defeat the Tories and their assault on workers democratic rights.
By Asling McEvoy
IT’S BEEN almost four years since the senseless killing of 29year-old investigative journalist Lyra McKee occurred, an act which shook people into questioning why something like this could still happen over 20 years after the “successful” Good Friday agreement.
‘Lyra’, the documentary film by Alison Millar which was released on November 4 2022, uses both raw and intimate footage to show the audience both inspiring and frankly devastating moments surrounding Lyra’s life and the moments before she was killed.
The film highlights just how successful, talented, and unstoppable Lyra was as a journalist and in her field. The film displays personal footage of McKee recording notes on her dictaphone for various stories she was working on, and the viewer gets fully immersed into her funny, intelligent, and down-to-earth persona.
In the documentary her ability to ask
the hardest questions in the most approachable way and go head on with some difficult and unanswered issues is shown. Lyra was comfortable with challenging unknowns and was investigating things such as child abuse rings, unsolved murders, and missing children. Many of the issues that she was interested in stemmed from McKee’s working-class upbringing in Belfast.
The film does well to remind the viewer of the incredibly important issues Lyra fought to bring to the surface. Her 2014 article 'A letter to my 14year-old self' which highlights her own inner struggles as a teenager, has since helped armour younger members of the LGBTQ+ community with courage and hope for their journeys of self-discovery and acceptance.
Lyra also set out to rumble the underlying issues of suicide rates and ongoing trauma, particularly among the working class, post the Troubles. McKee wanted to shed light on the "forgotten" generation, the "ceasefire babies" who grew up after the Troubles,
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l Reviews of Derry Girls, Over the Bridge, An Cailin Ciuin’ and A Spectre, Haunting
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and yet still live with the consequences of a society divided along sectarian lines.
The film showed an optimistic McKee, excited for the chance of things to get better and determined to be an important part of that change through her gift of truth seeking.
However, here we are years later, almost at a mirror of the political situation when the Lyra was killed, no functioning assembly and increased political polarisation. Lyra’s sister, Nicola, spoke on the remaining hope for change when she said "I hope it stops here, I hope that bullet stops here. I hope it does not travel any further. We’ve all been through enough." After Lyra's senseless killing young people and workers came onto the streets to show their revulsion. The sectarian organisations responsible for this killing were challenged in the communities they were active. To ensure there is no more senseless death an alternative based on uniting workers and young people must be built.
By Harper ClevesIN EARLY November Elon Musk purchased Twitter. Within a week of his ascendancy, he had arbitrarily laid off over half of his staff internationally — by email.
This is far from the first time workers have been unceremoniously sacked; the tenacious former Debenhams workers were also dismissed over email in 2020, and this past March P&O ferries fired 800 employees via video message.In today’s world, examples of bad bosses abound, but surely they’re not all bad?Karl Marx wrote of the bourgeoisie; the super wealthy elite that owns the companies with the machinery and resources that allow for the mass production of most of the world’s wealth, and the proletariat; the masses who need to work in order to survive, and whose work actually produces the wealth.
The relationship between these two groups, Marx argued, is inherently exploitative. The bosses have to compete, and continually increase profits, which are directly accrued from the unpaid labour of the workers. So every increase in wages means less profit for the bosses. It is for this reason we hear some of the draconian stories about Amazon workers peeing in water bottles in order to keep up with the high yield demands set by Amazon management: the more wages, benefits and ‘down time’ for the employees, the less money for those at the top.Even so, many people will have had bosses that were a good deal nicer (and a lot less wealthy) than the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos of the world. Family restaurants who let staff eat for free, nonprofits with casual Fridays and weekly employee check-ins, even big corporations with generous salaries and other benefits. This begs the question, can bosses be good?On an individual basis, of course, bosses can have nice personality traits. CEOs and small business owners alike might love their mothers and be nice to animals.But capitalism is not simply a conglomeration of individuals acting completely independently and according to their own morals. It is a system, composed
of interdependent parts in which each human is shaped and guided by their social position. Under capitalism, individuals in their roles as bosses — and certainly those considered to be successful — are not compelled by their workers’ well-being, but rather by the logic of the markets.Hence, even workers with relatively cushy, high paying tech jobs have been dumped as soon as their multi-billion dollar companies see their profits squeezed.Many bosses are not billionaires or millionaires. Small businesses often struggle under this system. Capitalism favours the already wealthy. It is not enough to simply set up a business; the resources to compete are also needed: money to advertise, money to improve technology, money to expand a small franchise to new locations. Big businesses try to dominate markets and very often squeeze smaller competitors out, until only a well-resourced few are left. In this environment, even the seemingly kindest small business owner will feel the pressure to cut costs to maintain some semblance of profit. Pay cuts and layoffs are almost always the first port of call. In all situations, then, the fundamental divide seems to be this: bosses vs workers.Malcolm X once said, “Show me a capitalist and I’ll show you a bloodsucker.” Regardless of how pleasant or otherwise bosses may be as people, as bosses they can only exist by exploiting, i.e. by systematically appropriating the products of other people’s work. The 3,311 billionaires who have amassed $11.8 trillion between them did so by denying billions of workers the fruits of their labour.But these workers have the numbers and means — by organising and striking together — to halt the profits of the capitalists, and take away their power. By doing so, workers could get the wages, conditions and security they really need. But to create lasting equality we need to go further, and reorganise society for socialist change.
As Karl Marx said, ‘workers have a world to win’. We could add: one without bloodsucking bosses.
lighted by the reality that the new migration policies following Brexit ended up disrupting low-paid industries such as hospitality and tourism, as these industries often rely on the super-exploitation of migrant workers. Similarly the EU has its own fortress Europe policy, spending billions enforcing its borders including a policy which has led to thousands of tragic deaths in the Mediterranean sea.
Furthermore, those fleeing to Britain to seek refuge and who are typically stuck within the asylum application process for months or even years at a time, are banned from working. Consequently they are often forced into poverty, even though reports show that letting asylum seekers work whilst waiting for a con clusion could benefit the economy by millions each year.
happen under extreme circumstance and is not deemed acceptable. The conditions and protocols in the center have been described as otherwise oppressive. The government’s anti-migrant and refugee narrative which they call “the hostile environment” works to disguise these violations and normalizes racist and divisive attitudes which are easy for the far-right to utilize, as seen recently on the island of Ireland (see below). The systemic hostility towards migrants and refugees enforced by the government must be called out by a united movement of working-class people fighting racist division and demanding jobs, hous
By Saana TaussiMIGRANTS AND refugees continue to be systematically treated as disposable by the British government and are as such repeatedly put into vulnerable positions. Rishi Sunak has empha-
sized that the stopping of people trying to cross the Channel in small boats is his top focus. This commitment to stopping immigrants from entering the country is a priority over the fact that some of these individuals may be returned to hazardous conditions.
This was reflected in the Tories recent
deal in 2022 to deport refugees to Rwanda, dismissing the realistic danger this potentially puts refugees under. This paired alongside the stricter migration policies in the context of a Tory Brexit which added pressure to turn Britain into a fortress.
The dismissal of migrants is high-
Immigrants then are often left stuck in a dysfunctional system within which they have very little au tonomy. In Northern Ireland it was recently reported that several pregnant immigrant women have been held in the Larne House, Northern Ireland’s immigration detention center, since 2016 even though the detention of pregnant individuals should only
PROTESTS HAVE been organised in many different parts of the country outside buildings being used to accommodate refugees; including in East Wall, Ballymun, and Drimnagh in Dublin, Fermoy in Cork and in Killarney in Kerry. In some cases, these protests have attracted crowds of hundreds of people.
The refugees in these centres are fleeing the war in Ukraine or other wars, persecution, and devastation. Large crowds gathered outside these facilities, shouting slogans like ‘Get them out’, is obviously intimidation and must cause real fear and distress to those being targeted.
The protests are being driven by an emboldened far right, who want to use the refugee crisis to push their own noxious agenda of racist division, and turning back the clock on women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and church control.
Stirring up racism
At the same time, the protests have drawn in others who are not part of the far right. There are racist attitudes in society and these are being consciously played upon with pernicious arguments about ‘unvetted males’ arriving in the country. However, there is also a real concern in many communities that it isn’t possible to accommodate the number of refugees who are coming to Ireland or about the impact of a sudden increase in populations in areas that are already suffering
from a lack of housing and services.
The government bears responsibility for giving the far right opportunity to take advantage of this situation. There is a crippling housing crisis, with record numbers in emergency accommodation, many living in substandard conditions, rents at an all-time high. Many public services are at breaking point, including GP and health services. Meanwhile, they have failed completely to plan properly for the increased numbers of refugees since the war on Ukraine began, resulting in many who arrive here being housed in completely unsuitable and
inhumane conditions.
The different crises in our society are not caused by refugees, and have existed long before the current war in Ukraine began. They are caused by the underfunding of public services, the refusal over years to build public housing, a system which places the private vested interests of landlords and developers above the needs of workingclass people. There are more than enough resources in this country to ensure homes, services and decent living standards for all.
There are 166,000 vacant and derelict homes in the state and the wealth of Ireland’s billionaires went up by €16 billion during the pandemic alone. Multinational corporations here are making record profits and the government had a €5 billion surplus last year. But this government’s neglect creates a situation in which ordinary working-class people feel forced to compete with each other for access to housing and other necessities.
Protesting refugees will not improve anything in working-class communities. What’s needed is a united movement of working-class people of all backgrounds to take on the government and their system; and to demand public homes for all, a real public health service and major investment in long-neglected communities. The far right forces are completely opposed to this, and by deflecting attention to refugees are in fact protecting the status quo and those in power.
Far right can be pushed back But they can be pushed back. We shouldn’t believe for a second that there is widespread support for these protests in the communities where they are taking place. In Fermoy, protests against Ukrainian refugees were significantly outnumbered by an anti-racist community protest which was joined by hundreds. We need a fightback against the threat of the far right.
But in order to be effective and to win as many as possible away from the orbit of the right, this fightback has to be clearly opposed to the government
and capitalist establishment. It has to put forward a real alternative, based on uniting all working-class people in a struggle for a decent life for all.
Jobs and Homes for All, Not Racism
⚫ No to the hostile enviroment. No to deportations. Shut down the racist detention centers!
⚫ Defend the right to asylum. All refugees should have the equal right to study and work.
⚫ Build public housing on a massive scale. Cut and freeze rents, introduce a permanent eviction ban. Seize all land and property that is being hoarded for profit and use it for public housing.
⚫ Defend our NHS! Demand significant investment to deal with the crisis in our health service.
⚫ Organise to take on the far right, and divide and rule politics. Get organised in communities to challenge the myths about refugees and migrants and put forward an alternative based on uniting working-class people.
⚫ Build a struggle against capitalism, which has always promoted racism and division among the working class. Fight for a democratic socialist society that uses the wealth and resources to fulfil the needs of all, for a world without inequality and oppression.
The immense social, political, economic and ecological crises reflect a capitalist system in perpetual crisis. That’s why the Socialist Party stands for revolutionary socialist change, and why we are organising to bring it about. We support every right and reform that can improve life for working-class people while fighting for what’s needed. We say: if capitalism can’t afford to provide for our needs then we can’t afford capitalism.
• Workers need real pay rises. Permanently link all wages to the rate of inflation by law, alongside pay rises to compensate for real pay lost over the last decade of austerity.
• For an immediate increase in the minimum wage to £15 and the removal of all youth exemptions.
• End precarity including ban zero-hour contracts, end bogus self-employment and the reliance on agency staff in the private and public sector. Fight for guaranteed hours with permanent contracts for all workers.
• A four-day work week with no loss of pay.
• Reduce the pension age to 60. A decent guaranteed pension for all.
• No layoffs. Open up the books and take large job-shedding companies into public ownership, under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need.
• Repeal all anti-trade union laws. For the
right to organise and carry out effective action.
• For a fighting trade union movement that organises the unorganised and mobilises the power of its membership. All officials should be elected, subject to recall and live on the wages of the workers they represent.
Housing
• Reduce and freeze rents to an affordable level. Ban evictions.
• For a major programme to expand housing executive stock.Take the big construction companies into public ownership. Seize vacant properties and unused land being hoarded for profit.
• Provide culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers.
• Nationalise the banks and reduce mortgage payments to affordable levels.
• For a major public works programme to build public schools, hospitals and childcare facilities.
• Defend the NHS: stop and reverse all privatisation and cancel PFI debts. Extend the NHS by taking pharmaceutical companies into democratic public ownership and fully fund mental health services.
• Free publicly-run childcare scheme for every community. Extend fully-paid parental leave to two years and provide high quality early-years education.
• For 24-hour free counselling services and education programmes to begin to tackle the mental health crisis.
• Free education and training for all. For a fully integrated, non-gender segregated, comprehensive and secular education system and the right to a third-level place for all who want one, with a living grant for all students.
Environment
• For substantial investment in an expanded, reliable and free public transport system.
• End the reliance on fossil fuels — keep them in the ground. For an extensive state investment in renewable energy, retrofitting homes and public buildings, and green jobs.
• For a just transition to a zero carbon economy, with no job losses or regressive carbon taxes.
• Take the fossil fuel companies, big agribusinesses and corporations into democratic public ownership to stop the destruction of our planet for profit.
Equal rights for all
• Oppose all forms of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.
• For LGBTQ-inclusive, consent-based sex education in schools. Fully fund trans healthcare.
• Reduce the voting age to 16.
• Defend the right to asylum. Shut down
detention centres. Abolish all racist immigration laws.
• Black lives matter! Oppose far-right division and organise against racist or LGBTQphobic attacks.
• For fully publicly funded refuge centers for victims of gender-based violence.
• Fight to end gender violence, abuse and harassment in all its forms.
• For a socialist feminist movement that unites the whole working class in the struggle against oppression.
For workers’ unity
• No hardening of borders – north-south or in the Irish Sea.
• For the unity of the working class, Protestant and Catholic, North and South, in opposition to all forms of sectarianism, paramilitarism and state repression.
• Build a new party that can unite workingclass people across the sectarian divide in the spirit of solidarity, compromise and mutual respect.
• For a socialist Ireland, with no coercion and the rights of minorities guaranteed, as part of a free, equal and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, as part of a socialist Europe.
End the rule of the billionaires
• Take the wealth off the 1%. For real progressive taxation on incomes, assets and profits to fund public services. Stop tax
avoidance and evasion by the wealthy.
• Renationalise all privitised services in health, education, transport, postal, housing, energy, sanitation, water and broadband provision.
For socialist change
• Capitalism produces inequality, environmental destruction and war. We need an international struggle against this system.
• Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally.
• Oppose all imperialist powers, wars and occupations. No to NATO and EU militarisation.
• No to a Tory Brexit— oppose all corporate“free trade” agreements and fight for a socialist alternative to the bosses' EU.
• Build a new mass party that organises workers and young people in the struggle against all injustices and for a socialist alternative. For a working-class movement to bring about a left, socialist government that breaks with capitalism.
• Take the key sectors of the economy — the monopolies in banking, industry, services, agriculture and big tech — into public ownership under the democratic control of the working class.
• Replace the capitalist market with a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.
