FRANCE'S RECENTLY elected conservative government has opened a series of attacks on public services.
President Chirac's first target is the privatisation of France Télécom. Half of the company is being sold off to a cartel headed by Deutsche Telekom and the US Sprint company.
The privatisation attempt follows a series of attacks by Télécom manag.
Chirac's predecessor found a 1992 dispute, in which three-quarters of Télécom workers were on strike. too hot to handle. Now the right is restarting its offensive. widely than Télécom. His government intends to freeze wages and pensions for public sector workers. Now public sector unions are fighting back.
A general strike in defense of the public sector is planned by France's seven trade union federations for mid-October. It is long overdue. Public sector wages in France have fallen nine per cent since 1982. The minimum wage in the public sector is now less than the youth training allowance.
Major opening
Our French sister organisation, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionaire, sees the planned public sector general strike as a major opening in the fight against privatisation and for depoints out that it is historic: the first such strike for decades.
in recent wears Eurone's uniont have organised general strikes, just when the tactic appeared to have been nearly forgotten. in Spain, Italy, Belgium and elsewhere a new wave of austerity is being enforced by the state.
All across the European Union, govemments are trying to cut state spending at the cost of working people.
They are increasing the weath of the ruling class and the big multinatonals at the cost of public services desperately needed by working class people and their families.
Valy une trede unions can tumn back this offensive. To do so, they must take up the responsibility locally and nationally to unite all the victims of the new offensive in a determined fight to defend welfare rights, free education, wages and pensions.
Though no general strike in recent years has gone beyond protest action to draw out the potential of a bid for power, they have allowed the unions to snow their strenoth and tum back much of the attack on social rights.
Most members of Britan's unions don't agree with the need for general stnike action, or even the idea that it can be effective.
If trades unionists take up their responsibility to lead the fight against austerity, they wil see why the general strike is becoming, once again, the strongest weapon of Europe's working class. Belgrade. The effects of the arms embargo which has discriminated against Bosnia for so long will be back in full force.
Croatian troops have been supporting the Bosnian army - but may well be used against Bosnia at a later date.
Any just solution will ultimately be in the hands of the Bosnians The UN, the US and NATO have a dierent acend a which has never coincided with that of Bosnia and will not do so in the future. NATO should keep out and the UN should get out.
The arms embargo should be lifted and the Bosnia given the basic right to defend itself.
• Lift the Arms embargo!
• No to ethnic cleansing!
• No partition of Bosnia!
• Right of return for refugees!
The Intellectual fashion of the past two decades suggests that class has lost its meaning to describe political action. Should we take It seriously? IT IS TRUE that the social democratic clement in the Labour Party has abolished class. They speak about scrving une naton. I s, nowever, totally unrealistic in terms of people's actual experience.
The term "working class' ated with somebody with dirty fingers doing a manual high up the scale who depend for their means of life on sell. ing their skills. On this basis. the working class goes up to ou per coot of the population What they do now is to turn everybody theoretically into "middle class"; and have an underclass, who they speak of as if they nad chosee to opt our of society they prefer to live in cardboard boxes, they do The very clever word they developed is consumer. If you do not have any money, you cannot be a consumer They found a word which dehumanises and depersonalises the poor. They do not exist, they are the slaves in society.
In this way, by telling the middle class people that they are all right, because they are ated a completely artificial Behind the new political discourse there is a new Tony Benn governments.
The more you think about it. the more you realise that the world financial markets are the new Raj-the new capitalist empire.
How you get out of it is the neat qucsoon, but i think we dinosaur...etc") have to be absolutely clear. that a century of tentative progress by working people in Phote: Wayne Edginfor controlling their economic ship is on the agenda is just an destiny is being reversed. It is a massive counter-revolution, The new leadership of and that is why the social democrats say, "We cannot Labour have quickly acdo anything about it. The commodated to this new world has changed, you are a agenda.
TONY BLAIR is a conserGlobalisation is an attack vative; he is a nice man, but on democracy. What they say about a short period of hard. he is a conservative. He is not just not a socialist, he is He does not believe in the organic link with the unions. He is really the most popular conservative in Britain. He could have applied for the leadership of the Tory Party.
This is the failure of the social democrats. They have failed as much as the communists did. The communists failed by being authoritarian. cratic, but the social democrats very largely have collapsed into the arms of capitalism.
so when we look buck on the twentieth century, and see the different types of socialism, all of them have failed. Do you expect that the next government will be very unpopular? I THINK when they win the expectations will go up very sharply. Then the disillusion will set in very quickly. Then all sorts of things may happen.
The Conservative Party may spilt, occause there are already two conservative parties: there are the centre conservatives, of whom Blair is a natural member torcuiet Wi the Liberals.
Then there is the right wing now with John Redwood.
And then there is the trade left, still in British politics. keeping its head down now because of the desire to defeat the Conservatives.
If you had proportional SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.91, October 7 1995 Page 3 representation we could have a complete realignment of politics.
I think the British estabBlair in order to make the cuts in the welfare state, which he would be stronger to make than Major, because Major is weak and unpopular. The fall of communism and the crisis of social democracy leave the left with the task not only to reorganise but also to reInvent itself. THE COLLAPSE of communism is comparable to the Reformation, when Martin Luther attacked the Vatican, which was utterly corrupt and centralised. He created a more popular type of Christianity which was more democratic.
There has to be some real change. Because anything less than a real change in the course of world politics would be a disaster. Politics could move to the right.
Fascism is a product of two forces. It is a failure of capitalism, and a tasture or tie ict to provide an alternative. Both ingredients are integral.
That is the real failure of New Labour. They have no explanation other than the Conservatives are wicked. We do not discuss socialism. We do not discuss capitalism.
To build up understanding and support for a real change ades. But this is an inherently unstable situation we are in.
LABOUR PARTY