Working Class Monthly Published by the revolutionary soCialist organization

revolutionary SOCIALIST

Issue No. 5 February 2012 Price: Donation

ARAB SPRING
were the motor of the protests. Although Mubarak was brought down, the military which is a massive factor in Egyptian society and previously was the pillar of Mubaraks reign remained in power. The overall situation for workers in Egypt has only marginally improved, anti-trade union laws actually became even worse. A break in the pattern was the struggle that emerged in Libya. After having initially been a spontaneous manifestation of general anger about Colonel Gaddafis four decade rule, the resistance movement was taken over by a clique of former Gaddafi loyalist who suddenly realized that they were better off on the side of the NATO imperialists. The uprising turned into a bloody civil war and eventually NATO forces, seeing their chance to get some booty from Libyas oil reserves and trying to appease the region by showing presence, came out in support of the rebels. The next state in-line for a regime change seems to be Syria, where the 30 year rule of the Assad clan is challenged by a massive rebel uprising. So far around 7000 people have been brutally murdered by the pro government forces since the beginning of the uprising last March. However the antiAssad rebels seem to be hardly an improvement for the working masses of Syria. The rebels are made up mainly of petty bourgeois forces, trying to replace Assads regime with some bourgeois democratic regime and not opposing foreign intervention. In Syria, another Libya-like scenario seems likely. The Syrian working class has the least to win from a civil war and foreign intervention, for them this will only mean more suffering and more unnecessary losses. Bourgeois democracy is the dictatorship of capital! Wherever a democratic regime change has taken place in the Arab world it has so far been hardly an improvement for the working people of these countries. In Egypt and in Tunisia, the bourgeoisie and the military remain in power, in the proxy-elections in these two countries mainly right-wing Islamic forces have profited. Bourgeois democracy in these

Year one of the

countries doesnt mean a change of the living conditions of the working class or more freedoms but merely more participation in power for the national bourgeoisie. Like the economies of the Arab countries are dependent on foreign capital, the governments in the region will always be dependent on the imperialist bourgeoisie. Bourgeois Democracy is a privilege of the imperialist countries and is paid for with the super-exploitation of the third world. All attempts to build Western-like democracies in the Arab countries must therefore be in vain. The imperialists will always make sure that the Arab states guarantee the imperialists parasitic interests in the region. Even the democratic countries in the Middle East, such as Turkey have to base their power heavily on the military to control the contradictions in the powder keg of a society. So if the working class and all the oppressed people in the Arab countries want to strive for something better than the smokescreen of democracy they have to go beyond the bourgeois order of things. A working class answer is needed! Although workers have broadly participated in the various uprisings in the Arab world the working class as an independent political factor has not yet stepped onto the scene in this region. The first promising steps have been taken, like the strike movement in Egypt after Mubarak had been expelled from power. These steps however, are only small ones and the big step has yet to be made. The working class in the Arab countries has a fighting tradition, dating back 50 years and more. The pro-imperialist proxy-dictatorships in the region have made all attempts possible to wipe out this tradition. However even now there are germs of a new fighting working class. The strikes in Egypt in 2006 and in 2011 after the fall of the Mubarak regime are a first glimpse of the enormous size and power the working class holds in these countries. If the working class makes use of its tradition and finds a way of appropriating the revolutionary ideas of Marxism it could really spark off an Arab revolution. In Britain we have to recognize that it is not an Arab question, but a question of the working class as a whole. Britain is at the forefront of the economic exploitation of the region and has participated majorly in the military offensive against Libya. The working class in Britain can gain no freedom as long as it holds other people in shackles. The most practical solidarity we can give to the struggle of the Arab working class is to struggle against our own imperialist-capitalist rulers in Britain!

arly 2011 saw the beginning of a massive uprising in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa. All over the region, regimes that were in power for decades were toppled. There is hardly a country in the region that has not been affected. The struggles saw thousands of workers in the streets venting their anger, being truly inspirational in their efforts, to people all over the world. Unfortunately the vision of a better and more just society that was shared by so many has not yet materialized. The Causes Although there are massive differences between the Arab countries, there are also some strong uniting factors, first and foremost a common cultural sphere and a common language. There is also a similarity in the sense that the whole region has been at the mercy of imperialism for years. All the Arab economies are heavily dependent on the foreign capital of Western European countries, especially Britain, France and the USA, first as colonies and later more indirectly via capital dependency. For example, the main foreign holders of Egyptian assets are British and American companies. The regions wealth of natural resources, namely oil and important trading routes, like the Suez canal, have given

it a special importance in the imperialist game of parasitic plunder by the Western European and North American bourgeoisie. The imperialists held their grip on the region via a whole bunch of proxy regimes. All the regimes of the region are extremely oppressive and authoritarian by Western standards. The power of these regimes, no matter whether dressed up as monarchies or republics, was, and is, mainly based on an excessive military apparatus that has a special role in these societies. The Arab people were often denied the most basic freedoms and rights, such as freedom of the press and free access to media or the right to (freely) vote. The power of the local bourgeoisie was bloodily exercised by the military which lived parasitically of the people. On top of all these factors came the economic crisis that started in 2007. Already in 2008, due to massive speculation on grain and the consequent rising grain prices, hunger riots in Egypt broke out. With the tightening economic climate the bourgeoisie in the Arab countries became less and less willing to finance corrupt and parasitic dynasties of rulers. Also, the possibility for the ruling elite to make concessions to the working class and the poor in these countries was drastically reduced. This explains why the outburst of anger

could take such a mass character and why the bourgeoisie was actually often joining the upsurges. From Tunisia... to Egypt... to Libya... to Syria? The general prairie fire in the Arab world started with the rising of the people in Tunisia. A period of mass demonstrations followed an incidence where an unemployed graduate, who had become a street peddler, set himself on fire after his license was taken away from him. In the following mass demonstrations the organised working class, namely the Tunisian trade union federation UGTT played a decisive role, although politically subordinate to the bourgeois forces. Ben Ali had ruled Tunisia for 23 years and his clan had scrounged a large amount of the economies profits. On January 15th last year he was brought down. After this success many Arab countries witnessed similar revolts. The most significant of them was most likely Egypt, where the Dictatorship of Mubarak was brought to an end after 30 years. The main force behind the uprising however was not the working class but the urban poor, the petit bourgeoisie and parts of the national bourgeoisie. Young people especially, who had graduated from university and faced mass unemployment,

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Back to the workhouse

T
he methods that the rich are willing to use to squeeze every last bit of profit for themselves out of workers seemingly knows no limits. Not content with putting hundreds of thousands of people on the dole through sackings, the rich, capitalist classes now cry that these same people, who they put out of work, are lazy and undeserving of the paltry 53 a week that they receive to live off whilst having to search for non-existent jobs. The con-dem government has listened to the concerns of the rich and implemented a scheme whereby people will be forced to work for free or have their job seekers allowance stopped, in what certainly harps back to the infamous workhouses of Victorian Britian. The scheme known unofficially as workfare is a way for big businesses such as Tesco, Asda, Mcdonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Primark, Boots, The Arcadia Group of stores which includes Topman and Burton amongst a host of others to add to their already enormous profits by effectively employing slave labour. An unemployed person can now be told by the Job Centre that they must work 30 hours a week for a company such as Tesco that has offered them work experience. They will not be paid for this work, nor even guaranteed a permanent job with the company once they have completed the 26 week placement. If they refuse to perform unpaid labour for the company offering the placement then they will have their benefits stopped for 13 weeks the first time they refuse to participate, for six months the second time and for three years the third time, condemning them to possible homelessness and starvation. Unemployed persons are thus forced to work for free and to produce value for the company employing their labour. Companies such as Asda which already make over 10 million profit in a single day benefit, while the workers who create this wealth get nothing. The scheme has already forced 24,000 people to work without pay whilst Tesco a company that made 1.9billion in the last six months exploited 1,400 of those working. Some of the workers employed in this way even have to do nightshifts and work in freezers without proper protective clothing. Aside from the moral outrage this scheme provokes there is also the absurdity of it. Implemented by the champions of the free market, the conservative party, the scheme is actually using public funds to provide the job seekers allowance the person receives in lieu of any proper payment from the company. So the government is subsidizing large corporations labour costs. The capitalists clearly think that they can get away with this robbery. If it were up to them they would have us all working for free, and unless the working class forcefully resists the workfare scheme then they will get their way, this can already be seen with permanent Tesco staff being sent home early from work as the company has people working for free.

he seven major Construction companies, such as Balfour Beatty and NG Bailey, been forced to abandon their plans to cut the pay of their workforce in the face of the threat of strike action. On Thursday 16 February Balfour Beatty failed to obtain an injunction against Unite, the union which had balloted its members employed by the company twice and on both occasions the members had overwhelmingly voted in favour of strike action.

Victory for the Sparks!

previous rates of pay will be maintained for electricians employed by Balfour Beatty. signed up to the new agreement by December 7 2011 they would face the sack. The victory of the sparks over the BESNA seven, as the offending construction companies have come to be known, is the first major example of a successful struggle being waged by the working class since the current economic crisis began in 2007. The example of the electricians shows that the bosses fear nothing more than the workers deciding to fight back. The electricians struggle began in August of last year when the eight largest construction companies announced that they would be withdrawing from the long standing JIB agreement, which guarantees pay and conditions in the industry. Instead, the companies wanted to bring in their own BESNA agreement with substantially worse pay and conditions. They announced that unless electricians Unites bureaucracy however was slow to react. It was a group of activists, who had been fighting the blacklisting of unionists in the construction industry for years, which set up a rank and file committee. The committee coordinated actions to force the construction giants to back down. These activists had learnt from past experience that the union bureaucracy was slow to act because it was generally unwilling to lean out the window too much and that if the workers want something they have to get it themselves. The rank and file committee organized protests at major construction sites around the country such as the Shard and Blackfirars station in London or the Town Hall refurbishment in Manchester. In Glasgow electricians picketed

at construction industry bosses awards ceremony. These protests continued weekly nationwide, culminating in a national day of action on December 7 which saw wildcat strike action at construction sites across the country. It was due to this pressure from below that the Unite bureaucrats finally put some effort in to the dispute and balloted for strike action. Unable to get an injunction, which would have made strike action illegal, the bosses of the BESNA seven finally backed down. This once again shows that the workers power is the strike. So, when the union bureaucracy is paralyzed by its own conservatism, we should organize ourselves along the lines of the rank and file committees and we could go on, not just defending previous gains made in struggle, but making new ones.

Balfour Beatty has now, in face of a potential strike, scrapped its plans to force all its employees to sign up to the BESNA agreement and has instead caved in to the demands of the electricians and retained the Joint Industry Board Agreement (JIB). The other seven smaller construction firms quickly followed suit and threw in the towel. This will ensure that there is no further wholsesale de-skilling of the electricians trade and that

Greece; Achilles Heel of European capitalism

nce again the Greek economy has hit the headlines. A new wave of austerity measures is sure to spell disaster for the working class in Greece. We have all seen the dramatic scenes of Greek workers taking to the streets, expressing their desperation through the only means they have. The reason for this reaction is clear. Overall unemployment currently stands at 20.9%, including half of all 16 to 24 year olds. Social spending and pensions have been slashed, and wages have been cut by up to a third, giving rise to greater poverty and homelessness. Bearing in mind that these figures were recorded before the new wave of austerity measures we can imagine how things are likely to develop, They face the prospect of 150,000 job losses in the public sector alone,

within the next two years, accompanied by further cuts to the minimum wage and a chaotic instability that darkens their lives. The media bombard us with figures so huge they can be very difficult to really grasp the effects they have on real people. The focal point of the recent backlash has been the newly agreed package of loans, crudely disguised as an aid package by EU ministers. Without the consent of the people it directly affects, the package gives the Greek Government 130 billion to pay off a portion of its debt, which currently stands at 350 billion, on the assurance that the Greek government drive through yet another numbing wave of austerity measures. The assurance given by the Greek government, with the usual

indifference towards workers, included a further 3 billion to be cut from government spending in a timely and efficient manner. This will have massive consequences for the workers of Greece. Health care, education, welfare and pensions will all suffer meaning a real drop in living standards for the people. The budget for Greek health care was set at 6.1 billion but is now facing a 1.8 billion cut, almost a third. That will mean fewer doctors, nurses, less access to vital medication and equipment as well as a drop in the overall standard of care. This cut, amongst a number of others, demonstrates just how the workers of Greece have been completely disregarded by their government in the face of capitalist interest. Even EU com-

missionaires privately acknowledge that this will not prevent a Greek default, but serves to delay it in the hope of protecting their own financial interests in Greece. The Greek workers are made to pay the bill for the capitalists financial crisis and their own corrupt government. However the Greek working class was also on the forefront of giving the bosses and bankers a good fightback, with several massive strike actions and huge demonstrations on the street. It might not be long until there will be Greek conditions in other countries, like Britain. We could win a lot if we would learn from the example of our Greek friends and learn to speak Greek with our bosses.

Who we are
A brief summary of the political positions of the RSO The Revolutionary Socialist Organization (RSO) is fighting against capitalism and for a new socialist economic and social order. Every day it becomes more evident that the so-called free market has nothing to offer for most of the worlds population. Capitalism means hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, war and misery. Even in the richest countries in the world, millions live at or below the poverty line. In contrast, a small portion of the population owns the majority of the assets; in Britain 1% of the population owns more than a third of all assets. Two classes are facing each other in the capitalist society. On one side are the capitalists who own the means of production. They are faced by the wage earners who are forced to sell their labor power. Many workers today are isolated, discouraged, and full of capitalist political ideas and filled with capitalist prejudices. Nevertheless, only the wage earners through strikes and other collective forms of struggle can bring the capitalist mode of production to a halt and hit the capitalist class at the critical point, their profits. Capitalism in its neoliberal phase after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 is politically and militarily on the rise world wide. The working class of the European countries is subject to massive social attacks. Trade unions and social democratic parties are unable to oppose this, but are perfectly integrated into the system. Their representatives participate in cutting public services and creating racist divisions. The Green Parties are not an alternative, they are bourgeois parties, some of which have a progressive rhetoric on human rights issues, but, where they participate in government, show that they are part of the normal capitalist state. The different imperialist blocs are arm-

ing themselves. The imperialist global player is still the United States. But the EU is trying to downsize the military gap with the United States and is also more and more acting as a militarily independent bloc. In contrast, we support the resistance against imperialist wars and occupations and combine this with the slogan: The main enemy is at home. To secure its domination, capitalism is (also) using and fostering the division of the working class. We are fighting against the oppression of people because of their ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation and we oppose these divisions with the unconditional support of every fight for equal rights. We are for the socialization of large corporations and their transformation into co-operatives under democratic workers management and control. Capitalism can not be eliminated by a few votes or parliamentary reform. All attempts to overcome capitalism through reforms have failed (and have often led to bloody defeats). Only a fundamental upheaval, a revolution based on the active participation of large segments of

the population can destroy the state of the ruling class, eliminate the bases of inequality, oppression and exploitation and create a free society. We are Marxists and follow in the tradition of the left opposition against Stalinism by Leon Trotsky. Our alternative is socialism. Our socialism is a free, democratic society built on elected councils. We refer positively to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. This revolution has indeed failed in the Stalinist degeneration in the twenties, but the idea of an alternative to capitalism retains its validity. Our socialism has thus nothing to do with the social democratic parties, or with the Stalinist dictatorships in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China. Capitalism is internationally organized and networked. Therefore, our revolutionary

alternative has to be international and internationalist. The RSO is not the revolutionary party. None of the currently existing organizations can claim that for themselves. A new revolutionary party will emerge from a process of transformations and mergers. The RSO will try to play a positive role in this process to build such a party and therefore put forward a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. If you are interested in this project, then get in contact with us and support us in building a revolutionary and socialist organization!

Contact: If you want to know more about the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation, check out our English website: www.revolutionarysocialism.blogspot.com or e-mail us at: revolutionarysocialist@gmx.com or just simply talk to the person who sold you this paper.