03.03.2005

Fight for what we need

In a frankly supine display of inadequacy, the TUC, along with several major unions, have welcomed the government's announcement of a paltry increase in the minimum wage. Starting from next October, the hourly rate for adults, aged 22 and over, will increase from a miserly £4.85 to a miserly £5.05. The rate for 18-21-year-olds will rise from £4.10 to £4.25. The government has provisionally accepted the Low Pay Commission's (LPC) recommendations that the rates should be further increased to £5.35 and £4.45 respectively in October 2006, subject to further advice from the commission in early 2006. The government has also accepted the LPC recommendation that the minimum wage for 16-17-year-olds should remain at £3.00 in 2005. The LPC will review that rate again in February 2006. The government rejected the LPC proposal for 21-year-olds to receive the adult rate. According to the European Commission, 17% of the UK population live in circumstances where they are "at risk" of poverty. This is a bit higher than the European average of 15% (approximately 55 million people). Worse still, 10% of the UK population are susceptible to persistent poverty. The group most at risk are children under five, with 24% susceptible (Joint report by the Commission and the Council on social inclusion March 5 2004). The commission defines people in poverty as those whose "income and resources are so inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of living considered acceptable in the society in which they live. Because of their poverty they may experience multiple disadvantage through unemployment, low income, poor housing, inadequate healthcare and barriers to life-long learning, culture, sport and recreation. They are often excluded and marginalised from participating in activities (economic, social and cultural) that are the norm for other people and their access to fundamental rights may be restricted." The European Union has a strategy for poverty, but it has a deeper purpose. Its class content is thoroughly bourgeois. Amid much concerned liberal hand-wringing the rightwing neoliberal agenda is explicitly stated. Whole rafts of social schemes are subordinate to a clear strategic objective for the EU to become "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". According to the report, "This emphasises the mutually reinforcing role of social, employment and economic policies" (ibid). It is into a range of schemes designed to prop up and extend capitalist productivity, demand and profitability that the minimum wage fits. For the EU and its member-states social inclusion means the incorporation of ever greater numbers of low-wage workers into the system of exploitation. As the report states, "Raising net minimum wages widens the wedge between earned and welfare income and contributes to driving people into jobs." In fact, "The UK national minimum wage is explicitly conceived as a tool (together with tax credits) for affording a minimum income from work, while allowing wages to respond to labour market conditions." With benefits such as the Working Family Tax Credit, you have a system whereby better-off workers subsidise through income tax the profits of low-wage employers, both small and large. The TUC and at least three large unions who all have significant numbers of low-wage members - Unison, TGWU and GMB - have all welcomed the government's announcement of a pathetic increase to the miserly minimum wage. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, issued a statement saying: "We warmly welcome this increase in the minimum wage, which is more than 10% over two years." Of course 10% of a pittance is a pittance. It is easy to see why the TUC is pleased when you look at the extraordinarily low target they set in their submission to the Low Pay Commission. The TUC recommends only £5.35, rising to £6.00 in October 2006. Whilst it argues for the adult rate from age 18, it recommends no increase for 16-17-year-olds - just an interim review designed to benefit larger numbers of young workers. The TUC says that the current rate of just £3.00 for 16-17-year-olds could be considerably higher. However, it wants to be "absolutely sure that such a rise will not have an adverse effect on job opportunities". Whatever happened to fighting for what we need and making the bosses pay? The TUC argues that its admittedly modest proposed increase would be "fair and affordable", as well as "considered and constructive". Our class-collaborationist bureaucrats have "looked at the hard evidence and worked with our partners on the commission to ensure that the wage is set at the right level to benefit business and the target number of low-paid employees" (my emphasis). The TUC's slavish approach to government and capital barely considers what workers actually require. Instead it promotes dishing out the scraps more widely and expects those below to be grateful for what they manage to scavenge. GMB general secretary Kevin Curran said in his statement issued last week: "It's refreshing to see Labour stepping up its work for the low paid, many of them with family commitments "¦ Breaking the £5 barrier is excellent news," he says, adding: "Breaking a £6 barrier in a third term will be even better". Scoffing each little potential crumb with relish, he is pleased to report that the minimum wage could then go on to "become a living wage" (!) How does the GMB decide what workers need to live on? By commissioning a national opinion poll. Apparently most people asked thought that £6 was reasonable, although 63% said something over £7 represented a living wage. The GMB sent in a submission to the Low Pay Commission - 'Our survey said ...' However, erring on the side of caution and reasonableness, the GMB stated it would campaign not for £7-plus, but for "at least £6". Kevin Curran's lame advice is: "Voting Labour can really help the lowest paid. Anything else is a vote to return hard working people to poverty pay." Funny: I thought they already had poverty pay. In similar vein Tony Woodley, TGWU general secretary, strongly welcomed the proposed increase: "A decent minimum wage is critical to tackling poverty pay and unequal pay," he said, adding: "Only Labour can be trusted to continue upping the minimum wage and providing a decent income for working people." The last rise was projected to help two million workers, but in fact only one million benefited. The TGWU statement quotes DTI figures that show the rises will benefit 1.4 million people by 2006. So the progress that Woodley and others crow about is very limited and very slow indeed. For Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, it was "good news for low-paid workers, mostly women and part-timers, and shows that the minimum wage is moving in the right direction." He approvingly quotes some classic Tony Blair spin: "For too long, poverty pay capped the aspiration and prosperity of far too many hard-working families "¦ Too often, people were told to make a choice between the indignity of unemployment or the humiliation of poverty pay." Having warmed our hearts with this hollow rhetoric, Prentis warns us of the bogeymen lurking not too far away - the Tories and CBI: "Let's not forget the minimum wage was introduced by a Labour government only six years ago and faced fierce opposition from the Tories and CBI who predicted meltdown and two million job losses," he says. Today, of course, the chairman of the CBI sits on the Low Pay Commission. The Unison submission to the LPC (jointly presented with the YMCA!) is interesting for at least attempting to present evidence of living costs. Unfortunately, Unison quotes the Family Budget Unit, based in York. Its research provides what it calls a "low-cost but acceptable budget". Its starting premise is that a low wage should represent a bare minimum and therefore makes a number of important assumptions: the full-time rate is based on 38.5 hours per week rather than most unions' aspirations of a 35 hours. It also assumes low-rent council housing, minimal transport costs, a "basic" nutritional diet, no holidays, no pension contributions, no debts and no smoking. Such lofty ambition! The submission says that Unison has consistently argued for the minimum to be set at a rate which provides a "living wage": that is, "sufficient income to ensure an adequate living standard, without dependence on work-in benefits". I wonder how many of the bureaucrats drafting this would consider the living standard described above as "adequate" for themselves? For a family of two adults and two children the Family Budget Unit's minimalist approach shows an hourly rate of £7.75. However, the Unison/YMCA submission shies away from this minimalist figure and recommends only £6.50 - but not now - only by October next year! This is because Unison "considers a number of factors" (not just minimalist need). Half male median earnings will reach £6.43 in 2006 and tax credits, which are hardly generous, effectively set an hourly rate of £6.50. So Unison and the YMCA set their sights low and recommend £6.50 for next year! The union bureaucracies here play their traditional class collaborationist role and fall in entirely with the neoliberal agenda to exploit workers. Indeed so deferential and weak are they that all they aspire to is that the state will concede some of the few crumbs they request. You get an indication here too of just how limited are the ambitions of the 'reclaim Labour' group. It is clear that a root and branch democratisation of the unions is required. Leaders need to be held to account, but this can only happen when there is substantial bottom-up pressure and cross-union rank and file movements that can, if required, act as an alternative but real leadership. This in turn demands that the left get its act together and start acting like revolutionaries. Unfortunately the left historically has also succumbed to the class collaborationist trap. Tailing the union bureaucracies and fully immersed in mere trade union politics, they pose only as a leftist current accepting the limits of the existing system. Their starting point is what the ruling class can afford and, like Oliver Twist, they ask for more within those bounds. The Communist Party argues that our starting point should be what workers actually need for a decent life. Six years ago we calculated that £8.57 was the minimum workers needed to reproduce themselves at the cultural level necessary to operate within society, not what they need just to exist. This figure, based on a 35-hour week, is in need of recalculation and ought probably to be adjusted to something approaching £10. Our calculations, in contrast to the skimping approach seen above, take into account holidays, the costs of running a car, nights out, school trips, etc, etc. The principle is to advance the independent interests of our class against those of capital. We do not surrender to the neoliberal agenda or constrain ourselves according to their real or imagined limitations. On the contrary, through this and other immediate demands, we challenge the system, expose its exploitative nature, reveal its limitations and hence raise the question of a different type of society. Alan Stevens