MOBILISE
UNIONS TO WIN A LIVING WAGE! FOR A WORKERS’ REPUBLIC!
12-07-15 – Even a cursory glance at the figures show shocking stats for
Australia, which are getting worse. Inequality is growing fast, with many
amongst the working class “dropping off the edge”. A large factor behind the
growing inequality is unemployment, which now stands at a 12 year high. The
official figure of 6.4%[1],
however, is known to be basically hogwash, and closer to triple 6.4 in reality.
Anyone with one hour of work per week is regarded as “employed”. There are
around 1 million unemployed, with youth unemployment (15 to 24 year olds) at
14%, but 20% in some regions.[2]
In times past, Australia’s “welfare state” would have catered for at least the
basics for those without work. But those halcyon days, at least in the view of
social democrats, are long gone and have been replaced by a punitive and ever
increasingly repressive state towards all workers, but especially those reliant
on some form of social security,
either through age, disability or illness.
Above: Graphic showing the prevalence of those
living below the poverty line in Australia, based on 2013 figures.
As many who receive the below the poverty line social security payments
will tell you, Centrelink policies often result in the treating a welfare
recipients as criminals, taking something which is not theirs. This is
especially the case for the unemployed, but it also metes out similar treatment
to single parents, who have suffered drastic cuts to their income. Demeaning
“Work for the Dole” programs stigmatise and label, but almost never create
desperately needed jobs. More often they create a situation of slave labour.
And try calling Centrelink for assistance – you will likely be waiting on the
phone for half an hour or more. Around a quarter of all phone calls made to
Centrelink in the year 2014 were simply not answered, according to a report by
the Australian National Audit Office.[3]
Centrelink is continually destaffed and defunded, and is thus not able to
provide decent service.
The privatisation of the former Department of Social Services has led to
massive corruption, as revealed by the ABC 4 Corners program on the 23rd
of February this year. Unemployed citizens have become a commodity which are
used by the privatised job agencies to fraudulently claim government funding
for finding a job seeker a job, regardless of whether it has actually taken
place. One anonymous job agency whistle-blower estimated that around 80% of
claims by job agencies for government funding involve some level of falsity.[4]
What is more, job agencies are inching closer to having the power to breach
welfare recipients if they, for example, do not turn up for an interview –
which is unlikely to help in any case. If the private sector is able to suspend
government supplied welfare payments to citizens, a new stage of
corporate/government integration has been reached.
Young people in Australia today (those born after 1990), have virtually
never known anything but government cuts to public and social spending, and the
resultant increase in the cost of living being passed on to working people. People
of previous generations often hark back to the post war and succeeding decades,
when unemployment was very low, and a decent social security safety net was
maintained. Public healthcare and education was generally provided, as was a
measure of public transport and roads without tolls. Housing was affordable,
and one wage was enough to raise a family. Many believed that this was
“Australia”, where a “mixed economy” operated, which ensured a more or less
egalitarian society. The virtual abolition of all these measures and more in
the last thirty years has many yearning for a return to the “good old days”.
Yet it should be clear now, that the high point of social democracy, or the
“welfare state”, is never returning, and can’t be brought back even by those
who believe in its ideals.
Global capitalism is simply at another stage to what it was during the
salad days of the “welfare state”. The conditions which allowed for post-war
social democracy to “shine” included: the recent destruction of physical
capital and working class human beings from World War II, which opens avenues
for reconstruction and hence labour shortages; the immense military victory of
the Soviet Union (USSR) over fascist Germany which led to the extension of the
socialist bloc, providing a counterweight to US led imperialism. The ruling
classes of the West also wanted to prevent “their own” working class from
looking to the socialist bloc with its guaranteed employment and provided
education and healthcare. Hence it launched the vicious Cold War against the
USSR on the one hand, while delivering substantial welfare for the workers over
which it ruled. Without conditions such as these, the post war “welfare state”,
as was experienced in Australia, could not have come to fruition.
If there is one stark example which demonstrates above all that a
“welfare state” in today’s capitalist economy cannot return, we need only
glance at Greece. After years of unbearable austerity imposed on Greek workers
by the “Troika” ( the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank
and the European Commission), the “left-wing” SYRIZA party – in reality a
social democratic front - was elected on January 25 this year. Within hours of
being elected it formed government with the ultra-right wing Independent Greeks.
It has spent every day since back flipping on its bombastic claims that it was
against austerity. It refused to break with the European Union, NATO, and even
the Troika itself. It has been withdrawing public money from schools and
pensions to pay the IMF. This is in a context where there is 25% unemployment,
and yet still it implores the Greek workers to back it – while enduring more
austerity. At the same time, SYRIZA fails to mobilise its members against the
threat of the fascist Golden Dawn, which is now the third largest party in
parliament. A “government of the left”, of which SYRIZA is the classic example,
remains a capitalist government overseeing a capitalist state which runs a
capitalist economy. And capitalism in 2015 is in dire economic crisis – it
cannot and is not able to deliver welfare, let alone jobs, to the workers it
subjugates. This is the case whether there is a right wing conservative
government, such as the Abbott Liberal gang in Australia, or a “left wing”
government such as the Tsipras/Varoufakis led SYRIZA in Greece.
The class betrayal of SYRIZA was typified by its pledge to raise
the aged pension eligibility to 67 years, as demanded by the Troika. Believe it
or not, this pension eligibility age is still less than what it has
been raised to in Australia. The Labor Party raised it to 67, and the Liberal
Party raised it to 70. This means that Australia now has the highest pension
age in
the world.[5] By comparison, Russia has a retirement age of
60, as do the socialist states of China, Vietnam and the DPRK (and women in the
DPRK can retire at 55). Australian rulers are more or less implying that
workers should die before claiming the pension. This abominable situation has
come into being with barely a peep from the leaders of the Union movement – a
movement which 35 years ago was one of the strongest in the world. Today,
Australia’s Union leaders, with barely a few exceptions, have refused to defend
even basic living standards for Australian workers. In Queensland, the
treachery of the leadership of the public sector Unions meant that not
one minute of industrial action was organised against the then LNP
government’s moves to terminate the employment of up to 25 000 workers in 2012.
Workers are still paying for this through high unemployment and an ever
increasing lack of services.
This inexcusable inaction, in the face of the largest assault on workers
in more than 100 years, has led many workers to believe that “nothing can be
done”. Yet this sentiment can be turned around IF workers and those with some
experience in the left and Union movements, act to give a lead. Some left
parties and other progressive organisations have links with some Union leaders,
and mistakenly believe that these relationships must be maintained at all cost.
On the contrary, cosy relationships with sell-out Union leaders ultimately will
have to be broken if workers in this country are to overcome the current
impasse. Workers and the left cannot continue to be dogsbodies for Union misleaders
who in turn ultimately serve the ALP. Endless appeals to the government or to
the ALP or to the Greens to “do something” have got us nowhere – we have tried
this for decades with essentially no result. What is needed is for the Union
movement to independently wage a struggle for demands which are in the
immediate interests of working people. This requires a struggle to replace the
current treasonous leadership of the Unions with a pro-working class political
leadership. Current Union officials can either join with such a movement, or be
removed by mobilised workers. The most class conscious and politicised workers
emanating from such a struggle can then form the basis for what will be
required to lead workers through a dangerous international political situation
– a revolutionary vanguard party.
Workers and their supporters here should be aware that the full spectrum
of open attacks by the ruling classes on living conditions are only occurring in
the world’s capitalist states – particularly Greece and Spain, but all of
Europe, the United States, Japan and Australia. Workers in the five remaining
socialist states, on the other hand, are not facing what we know as
“austerity”. Working people in China, Vietnam, the DPRK, Laos and Cuba have
relatively stable working and living conditions, as a result of their
respective successful workers’ revolutions having removed them from the world
capitalist economy. While in some areas living and working conditions in the
socialist states still have some way to go, they do not face universally
hostile state repression, either in the workplace or in society generally. This
is why, however distorted these socialist states are from the “ideal” – even if
an “ideal” was even possible – workers here need to defend these states against
threats from internal and external counterrevolution, as part of the struggle for
workers’ revolution on these shores. Ultimate protection and immunity
from capitalist imposed “austerity” can only be ended by the successful
establishment of an Australian workers’ republic, which can then play a role in
the international extension of socialism.
In the meantime, workers and their allies need to raise and fight for
demands which, if achieved, can both alleviate immediate suffering AND help
assemble the political leadership so desperately required. Such demands could
include:
·
PERMANENT
JOBS FOR ALL WORKERS!
·
A 35
HOUR WEEK WITH NO LOSS IN PAY!
·
A
MINIMUM WAGE FOR ALL THOSE UNABLE TO WORK!
·
RETIREMENT
AT 60 WITH FULL BENEFITS!
·
FULLY
PROVIDED HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION!
·
A
LIVABLE HOUSE FOR ALL CITIZENS!
If the rulers and their lackeys claim that the
system cannot allow these demands to be met, we reply that we will move towards
replacing your system with a system that will. For a workers’ republic!
MARXIST-LENINIST GROUP
E: mlgroup271@gmail.com
www.ML-Group.blogspot.com.au
0421 408 692
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-12/unemployment-data-january-abs-jobs/6088070
[2] http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2015/03/youth-unemployment-rising#
[3] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/centrelink-leaves-26-million-calls-unanswered-20150520-gh5iow.html
[4] http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/02/23/4183437.htm
[5] http://www.news.com.au/finance/australias-official-retirement-age-of-70-highest-in-the-world/story-e6frfm1i-1226903204989
No comments:
Post a Comment