Shelter Workers Strike

OVER 100 Workers and Supporters from Shelter, the Housing Charity, attended a Rally in Glasgow last Wednesday as part of their action in defence over attacks on their Pay and Conditions. The Rally was held during a One day Stoppage by affected Shelter Workers across Britain - with workplaces shut down across the country and a major demonstration held in London.
Workers are furious that Bosses want to attack their Pay and Conditions, including downgrading jobs, removal annual pay increases and increasing the working week - the equivalent of 3 weeks extra work a year with no pay! Many Workers are lone parents who may have to give up their jobs due to pay cuts and increased childcare costs. Ironically, others are now at risk of homelessness themselves, as they cannot meet their housing costs. Shelter like many modern day charities are now operating like Bosses under the worst forms of privatisation - putting profit before people.
Senior Managers say ‘ for sustainable growth’ Shelter need to rely on Statutory Funding for front line services, rather than traditional reliance on public donations, and ‘to win competitive contracts we need to drive down costs’ - Pay Cuts!
Shelter has built its reputation on its independent funding allowing its independent voice - Workers believe this change in funding will be like a strait jacket on their ability to speak out!
This is particularly hard for Workers to stomach as it was Shelter’s radical reputation as a Rights Based Campaigning Organisation which attracted workers to them in the first place.
Disillusioned Workers cannot believe Management can behave in this way and morale is at rock bottom.
While managers tell staff there has to be difficult financial decisions as this is difficult times, Workers are furious that unconfirmed reports say Senior Managers have awarded themselves a Pay Rise of over £20,000 last year - unconfirmed because Managers who ask Workers to trust them, will not confirm or deny their Pay Increase! They do confirm while calling for workers to tighten belts, that Shelter HQ was refurbished for £600,000 while cutting pay, and new highly paid management posts to implement this change have been appointed! Workers are incensed by the hypocrisy!
Currently Management refuse to meet with Workers representatives and the union have planned a further stoppage for Monday 10th March with a Rally in Edinburgh. A lobby of the Scottish Parliament is also scheduled for 12 noon on Wednesday 19 March. Please attend and contact your MSP to be sure he/she is there.
Stewards call for all supporters to get behind this campaign - its outcome matters to Workers through out the voluntary sector.
Please send messages of support to union members in Shelter: on shelterstewards@googlemail.com= and c/o Alan Scott,TGWU,Woodberry,218 Green Lanes, London N4 2HB.

[1] Please send messages of protest to Adam Sampson, Shelter, 88 Old Street, London EC1V 9HU or adam_sampson@shelter.org.u k and ask it be forwarded to the Board of Directors and copied to Shelter stewards at the above address.

Campaign gets underway for more public sector housing in Cumbernauld

LOCAL Scottish Socialist Party members launched their campaign for more public sector homes for rent in Cumbernauld town centre last weekend.
Party members are claiming that measures must be taken to cut housing waiting lists, as there is a ticking time bomb of homelessness and housing debt waiting to explode in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth.
Party member Kevin McVey commented,
“The privatisation of housing provision over the last 30 years is creating huge problems.
“If you consider that over 34 000 public sector homes have been sold under right to buy legislation across North Lanarkshire since 1979 and it’s been almost 21 years since a council house has been built in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, it is no surprise that tens of thousands are sitting on the housing waiting list in North Lanarkshire.
“With homeless rates in Cumbernauld the highest in North Lanarkshire it is clear that this is a huge problem that must be addressed. It is for these reasons that we have launched our campaign.”
Party members collected signatures for their petition that calls for a massive expansion of public sector house building in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth over the next few years.
Kevin added. “Our campaign aims to highlight the extent of this problem but more importantly is about demanding that solutions are found. Underpinning any housing strategy has to be the building of homes for rent that are energy efficient and affordable.
“Linked to renovation programmes for existing properties this would at least begin to tackle this problem.
“With the Scottish Government recently cutting the housing budget by 6 per cent it is obvious that determined campaigning will be necessary to promote the changes that are needed.
“This is the type of relentless campaigning we are planning in the months ahead and we were encouraged by the positive response we had on Saturday.”

The Smoke And Mirrors of Modern Finance

Inflation
In a new feature Raphie de Santos, looks at the economy and explains the truth behind the jargon of capitalism.

“CREEPING inflation is the malaria of the modern mixed economy. It is uncomfortable to live with and will just not go away.” -
Paul Samuelson, Nobel prize winning economist.
As capitalism was hailing the end of boom and bust and the elimination of inflation the global economy goes pear shaped and inflation starts to again raise its ugly head. Just what is inflation, how is it measured and who’s to blame for it?
We’ll try and answer all these questions here in this article on the ‘malaria’ of capitalism.
Very simply put inflation is a surplus of spending power. A recent example of this is the housing market.
Until a few months ago banks and other financial institutions were offering credit right across the whole population in the form of loans to buy houses. This primarily came about because of low interest rates in the United States and in other major capitalist countries.
There developed a situation where there was too much, albeit borrowed, money (demand) chasing the number of properties available to sell (supply). This caused house price inflation right across the capitalist world. It was a matter of the demand (loans) for property exceeding the supply (what was available to sell).
In reality it is the excess money, in the form of credit, which has been inherent in the capitalist system since the end of the Second World War which has meant that inflation is a permanent feature of modern capitalism.
The excess demand for products and services generated by this credit cannot be met by the existing supply. This is one reason why inflation has been creeping up over the last year as the easy credit which has been available over the last six years started to create shortages in products and services
A second reason for the rise in inflation is the increased demand especially for food products from the developing countries especially China. Part of the reason has been the conversion of basic food stuffs into biofuels creating shortages which have rippled right through the food chain.
Economists have estimated that 30 per cent of food price increases have happened for this reason. The other 70 per cent of food price increases is because of growing demand for higher quality food from the growing middle-classes in the developing world.
Inflation is measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI) which the Labour government used instead of the Retail Price Index (RPI) from 1997. These indices compare the price of a household goods from month to month. Conveniently, the CPI excludes the cost of housing which makes up the largest part of a family’s monthly outgoings. In January 2008 the CPI was 2.2 per cent per year and the RPI was 4.1 per year!
The government uses the CPI as a guide to annual wage settlements. As well as using the wrong figure they forget to say that any pay increase has a marginal rate of tax of about 30 per cent. Therefore, to match the more realistic measure of inflation (RPI) pay increases for 2008 should be 5.9 per cent (4.1/0.7) and not the CPI rate of 2.2 per cent.
In the next issue of the voice we will have a go at constructing an inflation index that more accurately reflects the monthly costs of the average family and how interest rates work.

US sucks the blood and oil out of Iraq

IF there were ever any doubts as to the main reason why the US invaded Iraq five years ago these have been removed by the economic policies that Bush, Blair, Brown and co have imposed on the Iraqi people.
Iraq has the third largest known reserves of oil in the world. When the two of the largest other known reserves are in Venezuela and Iran, countries which are ideologically hostile to the US you begin to understand the real reason for the invasion of Iraq.
Given the high dependence of the US domestic, commercial and industrial sectors of the economy on oil and predictions that global peak oil production is estimated to be reached at any time between five and fifteen years from now, the Bush regime was keen to secure both as much of the reserves as possible and the supply pipe lines.
These are the real reasons for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iraq reserves and production of oil offered the only real hope to the Iraqi people rebuilding their country after years of sanctions and war that as well as killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis has destroyed the infrastructure of their country.
But the introduction of the Hydrocarbon law in Iraq in 2007 will mean that the oil and the revenues from it will end up in the pockets of western companies particularly US companies. The legislation was imposed under heavy pressure from the US government.
They basically said that heads would roll if Iraqi legislators did not pass the law.
The law promotes productionsharing agreements, which can last for between 25 to 40 years. There are stabilisation clauses which mean that the Iraqi government will not be able to change tax rates or pass any new laws that affects Western oil company profits.
It in reality passes the control of the oil to western oil companies. It takes away Iraqi sovereignty over their own oil and is a form of privatisation.
Through the law western oil companies will be able to take up to 75 per cent of the profits from oil production.
There is not even any competition from western oil companies for the oil exploration and production contracts. The US government have insisted on ‘sole-source bidding’
For example, Halliburton a US oil company with close links to present and past US administrations was awarded a multiyear contract worth almost $20billion without any rival bids!
At the same time the US and UK governments are spending thousands of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While the free-market rules have not been applied to oil companies with close ties to the US government they have been applied to Iraqi economy and companies.
The Coalition Provisional Authority led by Paul Bremer, abolished tariffs on imports to Iraq and capped corporate and income tax.
This led to a general asset stripping of the Iraqi economy and exposed Iraqi firms to free competition when they had been devastated by the war leading to many closing down and the resultant unemployment of Iraqi workers.
The US and the UK governments have stripped the Iraqi people of both their dignity and their economic wealth.
We should expose to as many people as possible the full-scale of their crimes in Iraq and support those fighting back against this robbery.
The Iraqi oil workers are involved in resisting Bush and Brown’s plans for robbing the Iraqi people of their oil.

[1] You can find out about their campaign and offer support by visiting the Hands Off Iraqi Oil website at www.handsoffiraqioil.org

Cannon fodder and guinea pigs

From the mud of the Somme to the dust of Afghanistan the British state has always a steady job available for the Scots. Cannon Fodder.
In took just a few decades to transform the savage highlanders put to the sword by Butcher Cumberland at Culloden into the kilted heroes of the thin red line, loyal servants of the empire.
It’s a myth which has put down deep roots as was witnessed by the recent furore about the future of “our” Scottish regiments and the current media froth about soldiers getting jeered when walking out in uniform.
And of course we are still all dazzled by the media blitzkrieg on the role of the gallant Prince Harry in facing down the Taliban as he operated a phone link with RAF and US bombers.
Of course Harry’s cover was blown, to the sound of much synthetic anger from the generals, put on the next plane home pressing the start button on the ‘Brave lads in Helmand’ media blitz.
Not so lucky are the 1,300 Scottish troops are to be sent to Afghanistan from four of the five regular battalions of the recently formed Royal Regiment of Scotland who are bound for the deadly Helmand province shortly.
It is thought unlikely that any of the Jocks whose names become known to the Taliban will be flown out to enjoy a pint in Glasgow as the flashguns fire.
The latest deployment comes with a rising tide of gloom among NATO chiefs about the fact that they are in danger of losing the war amidst bitter recriminations that many of the NATO allies are unwilling to get involved in fighting.
Nor is there any better news from the other storm centre in imperialism so called “war on terror” Iraq.
Last year - in a different era - when Gordon Brown was popular and an election seemed likely— readers will remember a grinning PM striding among the desert fatigues and tanks in Iraq.
It didn’t get quite as crass a Bush’s infamous “Mission accomplished” but the message was clear, our boys have done their bit and the Brits are going home.
But the back peddling is underway just as we mark the fifth year of this bloodstained US led disaster.
On the pages of the house journal of the officer’s mess, the Daily Telegraph, those well placed sources reveal that far from cutting the troop numbers they are likely to remain the same.
What is coyly described as “uncertainty” over the security situation in and around Basra - code for we are losing - is given as the reason to maintain British troops at the present level.
Top commanders and defence ministry bureaucrats are due to meet this week and are likely to press the hapless Des Barlinne to keep the troops in Iraq.
They are thought likely to demand the full deployment of 7th Armoured Brigade in June, keeping overall troop levels at 4,000 amidst warning that cuts below that level will mean that all the Brits will be able to do is guard themselves.
The generals in London are growing increasingly concerned about the scale and cost of keeping a major force of 4,000 in Iraq and more than double that in Afghanistan.
And in a startling expression of the simmering resentment felt by what many officers feel about Brown’s spin on the war the commanding officer of the elite Scots Guards Lt Colonel Willie Wantin told the Telegraph that a reduction was “unrealistic”.
Another officer said: “We have invested so much blood and treasure in this mission that it would be criminal to risk it.”
Still amidst the smoke of battle the Whitehall warriors moved to ensure that, whatever else, their would be role for the Scots as guinea pigs for the war machine.
They announced that a five-day firing trial of Challenger tank ammunition tipped with highly controversial depleted uranium is to take place close to the scenic artists’ town of Kirkcudbright on the Solway.
Often compared to St Ives the sleepy Solway town has hosted an army tank range since WW2 and thousands of DU shells have been fired into the sea where they infest the seabed.
For many years the tales told by the military spin doctors was that such shells were only fired through paper targets thus falling safely below the waves with leaving no radio activity on land.
But four years ago pictures appeared showing real tanks at the range with shell holes which it is widely claimed were inflicted by DU munitions.
What is still clear that whether it is in the hills of Helmand or the leafy lanes of Kirkcudbright, the streets of Basra or the seas around Faslane, soldier or Guinea pig, the empire still needs you for its war machine.

Arms companies make a killing

by Ken Ferguson

STARTLED MPs are surprised at the soar away costs of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan as the US’s faithful poodle.
The supposedly well informed parliamentarians - most of whom prattle on about the ‘great job’ done by British imperialism war machine - appear to be surprised that alongside the immense human costs in injury and death war also costs money.
It seems to have escaped their notice that, as the dust of the Twin Towers settled and the ‘war on terrorism’ was launched, against the trends shares in arms firms rocketed in value.
In the US, which sits at the heart of war drive, military spending has gone ballistic.
In 2005 US war spending totalled $269billion, up from a modest $154billion in 2001 and budgeted military spending for 2007 was $563billion, with another $100billion unbudgeted spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, totalling 30 per cent of the US national budget.
In Blair’s modernised UK, arms exports totalled $1.9billion in 2004, putting the UK 4th in the world arms dealing league.
British Aerospace, now called BAE Systems Plc, the world’s fourth largest arms firm, earned $20,344million in military cash in 2004.
In what no doubt Labour ministers would tell us is business as usual BAE notoriously supplied Hawk aircraft to Indonesia, which they used in attacks on East Timor while its subsidiary Royal Ordnance has been accused by Amnesty of supplying torture equipment.
Other top UK arms companies include Rolls Royce with military sales worth $3,069million in 2004 and QinetiQ, the privatised Defence Research Agency with a healthy $1,399million).
BAE chief executive Mike Turner is living proof that war is a profitable business with a pay cheque reported as to £4.1million this year.
Given the super profits involved it is no surprise that our ultra business friendly government does it bit to keep the death dealers in business.
In Whitehall DESO (Defence Export Services Organisation) employs 500 civil servants to oil the wheels for arms sales around the world and promote the arms industry’s interests across government.
This old gunrunners club is further boosted by the ‘revolving door’ system which sees top politicians and civil servants retire from government only to resurface as arms dealers.
One such is Lord Levene, former government Chief of Defence Procurement, and now Chairman of General Dynamics UK and President of the arms firms lobby group the Defence Manufacturers Association.
From the political side comes the wellfed Tory Lord Soames who was a Tory defence minister and now puts his expertise in death dealing to work as a non-executive director of Aegis Defence Services.
The gunmen will, of course bombard us with propaganda about how many jobs are provided and how they are making a killing for Britain.
But it is taxpayers who pick up the bills for the “numerous urgent operational requirement orders” generated by the wars waged in Iraq, Afghanistan for equipment, ammunition and other kit.
Big ticket items include Bulldog FV430 armoured cars which have been designed to protect troops from roadside bombs while the vast amount of ammunition used stands in sharp contrast to then minister John Reid’s prediction that our boys in Helmand would not “need to fire a shot.”
It is the context of this boom that BAE has bought the US tank maker Armor Holdings and reported last year that its booming order book rose £1.5billion to £31.7billion.
The link between the super profits of the death dealers and the supposed “war on terror” is spelt out clearly by BAE themselves who told shareholders:
“The high tempo of military operations continues to generate growth in requirements for land systems in support of US and UK armed forces deployed on overseas operations,”
As has always been the case, death pays a dividend.