14.07.2004

Political fightback needed

Peter Manson warns that Gordon Brown's spending review presents a real threat to workers in Britain

There is no doubt that chancellor Gordon Brown’s announcement of up to 100,000 civil service job losses represents an appalling attack on public sector workers. In the attempt to show that he is tough enough to replace Tony Blair as prime minister Brown has targeted 84,150 jobs in England alone (some of which had already been announced in the March budget), while a further 20,000 have been pencilled in for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

However, things are not quite so simple. Brown is putting into practice the recommendations of Sir Peter Gershon, the chief executive of the office of government commerce. But, as Gershon says, these cuts should be seen “in the context of a planned growth in the public sector of 360,000 between 2003 and 2006”. In other words, while specific posts, together with the workers occupying them, are supposedly no longer required, at the end of the current spending period there will be a net increase in jobs.

The cuts are being presented as an onslaught on ‘government waste’, which, together with asset sales, will save an annual £21.5 billion by 2008. Nevertheless they are announced as part of a three-year package which will see government spending increase above inflation by £62 billion, or 3.1%, per year (as opposed to the 5% of recent years). Obviously, this increase in expenditure is for the fulfilment of particular tasks - which in turn will require extra people to carry them through.

For example, by 2008 spending on transport, including rail subsidies, will be 60% higher in real terms than in 1997, despite privatisation. Which rather gives the lie to the notion that privatisation was all about reigning in the state and reducing its role. In reality government spending, and with it the size of the state, continues to grow, and has done under both Labour and the Tories.

Privatisation was primarily about reigning in the working class and hobbling the trade unions. Even where services remain in the public sector, the spectre of privatisation - through ‘marketisation’ or the threat of PFI, etc - exerts considerable disciplinary influence over the workforce.

So the cuts are not just cosmetic. Brown claims that 100,000 existing posts can be saved through new technology and pruning ‘back office’ staff. Every government department has been set targets which it must achieve - and this has brought Brown praise from the representatives of capital: “Business applauds a radical and courageous efficiency plan that will involve implementing decisions that have been ducked for far too long,” said Digby Jones of the Confederation of British Industry. Bill Midgley, president of the British Chambers of Commerce, concurred - although he would have preferred a reduction in the “360,000 extra frontline jobs” as well.

Of all the government services, the department for work and pensions (DWP) is the worst hit by Brown’s axe. Out of 140,000 staff, it is has been told to shed 40,000. This cannot be restricted to ‘back office’ staff, but would inevitably eat into ‘front-line staff’ too. Besides, the division between the two is totally artificial - many workers spend part of their time dealing directly with the public and part performing associated clerical tasks.

I spoke to Lee Rock, London organiser of the Public and Commercial Services Union for the DWP. He told me that in many departments turnover is high, especially in London, so it is possible to lose staff by ‘natural wastage’ quite rapidly. The posts left unfilled will simply be abolished. “But there will undoubtedly be a serious detrimental effect on the service provided,” said comrade Rock. “Call centres and claims processing sections can be hit, but clearly this will affect quality.”

Brown has offered up the possibility, in cases where the cuts cannot be absorbed through natural wastage, of relocation out of London - in this way he can make savings in terms of both accommodation costs and London weighting payments (some £3,000 per individual). But this, for many workers, is hardly something to be taken up lightly. They will not want to just abandon homes, their children’s schools and communities. And why should they? “In many centres there would need to be redundancies,” said comrade Rock, “since it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to relocate people to other departments.”

However, as part of the campaign to ‘persuade’ people to leave voluntarily (without the need for expensive redundancy payouts) the attack on absenteeism is to be stepped up. Particularly in the trial period of the first two and a half years of employment, no doubt more staff will simply quit of their own accord rather than suffer constant harassment whenever they take uncertificated sick leave. At present eight days sick leave per year is the trigger point for disciplinary action, but this could soon be reduced quite drastically.

The Tory press loves to paint a picture of snooty middle class parasites living the life of Riley, but the reality is completely different. Overwhelmingly civil servants have been thoroughly proletarianised and nowadays the wages for the vast mass of them are in relative terms very low - and in the DWP the 2003 pay claim has not yet been settled (two further strike days have been called for July 29-30).

On top of that, the new performance and development system for staff appraisement, with its pre-determined quotas for the numbers qualifying for each pay-related marking, is another weapon. This has resulted in lower markings - and lower pay - for many workers. For example, the lowest marking, which was previously awarded to only a handful of individuals, will now go to the lowest 10%, irrespective of whether their performance would have qualified them for a higher band before. That opens up the possibility of thousands of workers being disciplined and eventually dismissed for ‘inefficiency’.

It remains to be seen whether the sheer scale of Brown’s new assault will weaken workers’ morale or, on the contrary, stiffen their resolve. Undoubtedly, however, many will see the fight for jobs and overall conditions as more important than the fight for pay, meagre though current wages are. In that sense they will perhaps view the July 29-30 strike as an opportunity to hit back.

Indeed, the willingness to take militant action has been encouraging. In London DWP members at Stratford have voted by 51 to four for an indefinite strike in defence of their victimised branch secretary, Charlie McDonald, a member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.

What is certain, though, is that in these circumstances industrial action, while it may force a retreat in an individual workplace, cannot succeed in halting Brown’s centrally directed attacks, unless it consists of coordinated action across the entire civil service. What is more, it must be guided by a political strategy capable of uniting workers as a class.

That, of course, is the missing link in the vast majority of trade union struggles. Civil service unions in particular have in the past prided themselves on being ‘non-political’ - as a result of this legacy the PCSU never affiliated to the Labour Party. Over the last few years, however, it has built up a parliamentary group, headed by John McDonnell MP. Moreover, since the stunning victory of Mark Serwotka as PCSU general secretary the so-called moderate grouping has more or less been completely routed. Now the PCSU executive is dominated by the left, members and supporters of the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Scottish Socialist Party and other groups.

Here then is a chance for the left to show its worth. The current situation cries out for serious, determined leadership in order to instil confidence amongst the workforce. Fight Brown in the courts, yes; stage protest strikes and mass demonstration, yes; fight for public backing, yes again. But more, far more, is needed.

Not only must there be a campaign for all-out indefinite strike action. The PCSU executive should immediately join with the RMT and others in sponsoring a conference of Britain’s militant trade unions, the Labour left and the serious leftwing groups to discuss how to mount a united fightback.
Sooner of later (and timing is everything) there must be an organised split in the Labour Party. Either Blair, Brown and the whole rotten New Labour clique is expelled, or a new party of the working class must be formed. Not a populist protest party or a revived version of old Labour. The epoch of moribund capitalism, the collapse of reformism and the imminence of socialism necessitates a Communist Party.