The poll tax is opposed by at least 70 per cent of the population, ranging politically from the Tory 'wets' to the anarchist and revolutionary left. But there is no agreement on how it can be beaten.
Two main options have emerged, each with many variations. One strategy places its hope in the unpopularity of the poll tax and the imminence of a general election. The argument is that if the evils of the poll tax are publicised all we have to do is wait for the election and a government which will abolish the poll tax. In this scenario the poll tax must be complied with as MILLION anything else will NO:
gIve the 'law Tories PAYEIS and order card'
in the election.
DONT PE This is the 'new realist' view of Labour leadership.
The alternative strategy 1s to the poll render tax unworkable here and now by non-compliance and force its removal.
This debate has Non-payment - the mass raspanse to the Poll Tax crystallised first and foremost whether the poll tax should be paid. Op ponents of non-payment use a number of arguments: that it is illegal; that it leads people up the garden path to a point where they will face greater hardship; that it leads to greater cuts in local government services; and finally that it rocks the boat and plays into the Tories' hands in electoral terms. The question of illegality should be given short shrift. In one sense not paying the poll tax is no more illegal than not paying your gas bill. It is not However it is certainly true that the full weight of the legal system will be brought to bear on those who don't pay. The question should not be an abstract one of legality or illegality. There is no principle involved. What is at issue is what is in the interest of the mass of working people and the poor. If furthering that interest means breaking the law, then it must be broken.
To an extent anyway this debate about whether non-payment should take place has become academic. Fourteen million people are not paying the poll tax and this figure with choice.
JOIN NON PAYERS DON'T COLLECT.around payers.
a criminal offence.
does not include those who are in serious arrears. Many cannot and never would have been able to pay, however great the take up of the inadequate benefits. It is not a question of leading them up the garden path (most of them probably can't afford houses gardens anyway!) - they have no On the other hand, the decision of those who can pay, not to pay, is an essential act of basic solidarity with those who can't. It is essential that the non-payment movement is built as a mass, collective movement to defend non-payers against PAY courts. It is not true that legal JOR sanctions would be used MILLION less harshly NON against the if poor everyone who could pay did.
They would be left even more isolated and vulnerable to the courts and bailiffs.
The anti-poll tax unions and groups are essential for this task and for the work of taking up court cases, briefing people and so on. The networks for mobilising against bailiffs would not have been built effectively without them.
Similarly, the unification of the movement into one national federation has been a gain, as the huge national demonstration on March 31st 1990 showed. But the existing organisation is too new and too weak solely to be relied upon for the defence of nonIf we are seriously to defend 14 million people, it will be necessary to use the traditional organisations of the working class - the trade unions and the Labour Party. Affiliation should be sought at every level. Where possible workplace groups should be built and non-payers organised in the workplace. Demands must be put on trade unions to take action to stop wage arrestment against their members.
Trade unionists have already taken action in some cases. Civil servants. for example. have struck against snooping and = ?.: have gone on sinke lo join time is Li
so forth. This sort of action can be built on. Trades councils should convene local meetings to build support for anti-poll tax groups wage arrestment. The TUC and to oppose must give a lead in this by calling national action in defence of non-payers.
The importance of the non-payment campaign does not simply rest on the vital task of defending non-payers. It has also kept the poll tax as an issue at the top of the political agenda. The demonstrations outside town halls culminating in the national demonstration in Trafalgar Square - coming as they did in the run up to the local government elections - caused a political crisis for the government which they were only able to ride because of the compliance of the Labour leadership.
The mass level of non-payment has also clogged up the machinery of collection so that over time if sustained at a high enough level it might render the poll tax unworkable. But there are a number of dangers in relying on a strategy ot non-payment alone. One danger is that, without some impetus from the labour movement and with an increasingly draconian use of court costs, arrestment and bailiffs, demoralisation will set in and the movement will ebb.
Another, perhaps greater problem is that the financial cost of the tax to individuals is not the whole story. One of the main aims of the tax is to cut local government spending and the services provided. These cuts are as much of an attack on the working class living standards as the individual burden of the tax. Although the political impact of non-payment should not be underestimated, in financial terms it can be absorbed by local authorities by translating it into cuts in jobs and services if they are able (and will ing!) to do so.
The fight against cuts and the fight against the poll tax are therefore inseparable. The opponents non-payment accuse nonpayers of causing cuts when clearly it is government underfunding that is responsible. The anti-poll tax movement must therefore turn this criticism around by taking up the fight for no cuts, as well as no poll tax, and demanding that the government provide the money.
The defence of local government services is vital for the working class as a whole but it is of particular concern to local government workers. In this sense the poll tax is a continuation of the government's attempts through the withdrawal of grants, rate capping and so on to force through cuts. Local government unions have faced a series of attacks on their members' jobs through cuts, privatisation and so on. The poll tax and particularly the use of poll tax capping has raised this to new levels. Poll tax capping in particular has been successtul in forcing councils to reduce budgets, either directly by order of the Secretary of State, or indirectly by councils capping themselves to avoid government intervention, in a way that previous measures have failed to do. The strategy of the Nalgo leadership to respond to this branch by branch, selling jobs and conditions in return for avoiding compulsory redundancies are no longer tenable even on their terms. Mass compulsory redundancies are on the cards. Their membership will be decimated and yet still they put their faith in the election of a Labour government which in any case has said in advance that the money will not be forthcoming.
This is the crux of the matter. Without more money from central government, poll tax or no poll tax the attacks will continue. It is a national attack and the unions must respond with a national campaign of industrial action for more government money and to destroy the poll tax.
Here also lies the opportunity. For the first time the mechanism the government has imposed in order to force councils to make cuts — the poll tax — has itself provoked mass resistance to its unfair and repressive nature. The workers who are most under threat are the same workers whose cooperation is required to make the system work. Resistance to the poll tax has already taken place in various forms. Initially a number of disputes broke out around the conditions in which workers were expected to collect the tax, over accommodation, pay, statting levels and so forth. The fact that there was the confidence to take strike action over these issues was fuelled by the perception that they were also in some way against the poll tax and received public support for that reason. Strike action has also taken place against job cuts clearly seen as resulting from the poll tax.
What is needed is a fight inside the local government unions to win action against the poll tax itself in order to render the tax uncollectable. In the end the only way to reverse the cuts is to defeat the poll tax by the kind of mass action that will force a future government to provide more money. Non-collection will not be easy to win in union branches. It may be approached in a number of ways. Anti-cuts campaigns can be linked up with anti-poll tax groups and workplace anti-poll tax groups can be built. Opposition to penalising non-payers, given the numbers involved and the fact that that many workers will themselves not be paying, can be a way of fighting for action which - if embarked upon - would take
on a dynamic that would be likely to lead to all-out noncollection. At the 1990 Nalgo conference, a motion adopt this to strategy gained one third of the vote.
This was achieved even before had really culs stated to bite or the pursuit of millions of non-payers had been started outside Scotland.
Should a movement for non-collection of the poll created be tax within the unions, built on top ol mass non-payment, the poll tax would be rendered unworkable immediately in a way that a non-payment campaign alone cannot achieve. This must be the second strand of the strategy that we fight for in the poll tax movement and in the unions.
There is however another factor to consider. When people don't pay the poll tax and when unions fight the cuts they do not come into direct conflict with the government. The first body they encounter is the local council. Once a local authority goes down the road of implementing the poll tax it is torced to attack the working class through taxing it to a level it can't afford and through destroying the services on which its majority depends. For the Tories this may be unpleasant but ultimately is part of their purpose as the party of the ruling class. For Labour it is a disaster. In Scotland Labour authorities sending sheriffs' officers into peoples' homes have been completely discredited in the eyes of whole section of the working class. And the Scottish Nationalist Party has gained from this in electoral terms at Labour's expense. Given that the only perspective for opposing both the poll tax and the cuts is to demand more money from central government, Labour councillors are faced with a choice. Do they side with the government and attack the poor, or do they stand with the working class and attack the government and through them the ruling class? Most have sided with the government, but a minority have fought for non-implementation. This minority needs to be supported because it poses the alternative to the poll tax.
non-collection Although non-payment and are the forces that can defeat the poll tax, the importance of a political voice setting out an ArCI COLLEGE MERTON Local govemment workers are contral to the fight against the Poll Tax alternative at a local and ultimately at a national level, is essential. The value of even a few councillors standing with the anti-poll tax movement should not be underestimated in terms of the way legitimacy is given to the struggle. For whole councils to take this stand could transform the situation, helping the struggles to be taken direct to the government with no more mediation. This would also facilitate the demand being raised not only for local elections but for an early general election to remove the Tories.
As with the demand for non-collection, the demand for non-implementation may be approached through partial demands that take on their own dynamic. Such demands include the defence of non-paying councillors against political witchhunts, campaigns for councils not to use bailiffs or benefit arrestment and campaigns against particular cuts. In order to do this effectively the struggle must be taken into the Labour Party. This does not mean that everyone in the anti-poll tax movement has to join the Labour Party (though this certainly makes it easier!) but it does mean that the campaign as a whole must make political demands on Labour both locally and nationally.
If the result that we want and need is to remove the poll tax, to remove the Tor! government that spawned it and to replace i with a Labour government that will resource local services to meet the needs of the working class, then the passive option of just waiting for the next election will fail. That strategy will either let the Tories off the hook or allow an incoming government to leave the Tory cuts in place.
The alternative is a strategy of active resi continued on page 9