New Labour = Neo-Liberals
Housing battles hot up
Behind Tony Blair's pronouncement that sink estates should simply be demolished are plans to encourage the privatisation of Council housing all over the country.
Tenants are offered incentives to vote for privatisation of their homes by promises of repairs and investment, so long as they agree that housing associations will take over the management of their estates. The housing associations "buy" the housing with huge loans from banks, to be paid for by rent increases set above the rate of inflation.
Campaigns are springing up all over the country against this underhand privatisation, developing links between tenants and affected workers.
On the Lee Bank Estate in Birmingham, tenants and Unison members talked about how to campaign for estate renovation funds to be given without the strings of privatisation. The meeting was organised by the Birmingham Community Conference.
In Camden, tenants have demonstrated outside Council meetings against the threat to bulldoze two run down blocks in Kentish Town. Before the last local government elections, privatisation proposals were withdrawn in the face of opposition against the borough. A housing strategy document published in August indicates that the Council is now looking to sneak through privatistion plans and con tenants into acceptance of stock transfer or private finance intiative/partnership deals, again through arguing that this is the only way of funding improvements and repairs.
Activists in tenants' groups and across the labour movement, need to unite to defend public services against private profit.
St Helens Victory against Council House sales
Glenn Voris, Secretary of Merseyside TUC (in a personal capacity)
The campaign against the transfer of 800 council houses on the Wargrave Estate in St Helens gained an important victory on October 26 when tenants rejected plans to privatise their estate by a margin of 6l per cent to 39 per cent.
This result is the only victory so far in the North West against any proposed transfer and has started a determined campaign across the region to fight off privatisation. Glen Voris reports:
St Helens Council had spent over £750,000 on glossy brochures and advisors and still suffered a humiliating defeat. At the last meeting of the Housing and Environmental Services Committee, Labour Councillors commented that it was a "disastrous and embarrassing defeat'. The meeting also agreed to suspend any future privatisation of housing for the next 3 years. The Direct Works Shop Stewards Committee and hundreds of Wargrave tenants were over the moon.
The campaign has only just begun. The next step is to force the Council to carry out its legal obligations to repair all the houses on the estate. A meeting on November 18, attended by 45 tenants unanimously decided to take legal action under the Housing Act via a Solicitor to order the Council to get repairs carried out. They also agreed to campaign to get central heating and fencing for all 800 properties.
The North West TUC Region Council unanimously agreed to fight council house privatisation across the region. A conference will be held in January with delegates from affected trade unions and tenants groups. Liverpool Unison City Branch has begun to mobilise together with the Merseyside Association Of TUCs to resist the draconian Liberal Democrat Council policy to offload all 44,000 council houses within the next 5 years. Unison has advertised in the Liverpool Echo and leafleted two areas picked for transfers in Speke/Garston (4,110 houses) and Pinehurst (750 houses). Three public meetings attracted around 500 tenants.
This protest includes legal attempts to stop the ballot taking place because of the lack of media impartiality over the transfers. This included a local radio presenter calling for a yes vote for transfer, in addition to Liverpool Council spending around £5 million on advertising.
A joint trade union/tenant campaign is now developing across Merseyside and is attracting much media attention.
For further information on this camnpaign, and on the conference on January 6, or to invite a speaker, ring St Helens TUC Centre on 01744-755889.