by Liz Payne

Women are the primary victims of

the cuts and privatisation agenda of

the Con-Dem government.

This is not necessary, whatever they may tell

us. £1,350 billion of public funds has been

siphoned off into the banks and money

markets, while £203 billion is cut from public

spending. Tax corruption defrauds us of £100

billion a year, while we pay for the crisis,

forced by an unelected government of and for

the rich.

There is ample evidence that women will

pick up the tab for at least 70% (£142

billion) of cuts to public spending. This will

be through job loss - 473,000 women’s jobs in

the public sector alone - wage cuts, the

slashing of benefits and subsidies and the

decimation of the caring services on which

women so much depend.

But we must never accept that isolation,

impoverishment, marginalisation and

disempowerment are our lot. Now is the time

to stand together not only to oppose the cuts

but to fight for something different–- a society

in which women are no longer exploited and

poor, in which we have a voice and in which

we can access without barriers the services

we need.

An Alternative Economic Strategy, as

adopted at last year’s TUC would boost the

productive economy, create jobs, enhance

public services and improve the lives of

millions of workers and their families. Such a

strategy, which complements the People’s

Charter, provides a basis for this struggle.

The Peopleʼs Charter was overwhelmingly

endorsed by delegates at the 2009 TUC and

affiliates include 16 national trade unions

and a growing number of trades councils.

The Charter was adopted by last yearʼs

trades union councils conference into its work

programme and a joint campaign on the fight

for sustainable jobs, skills, industry and

services is being developed.

Onto this agenda we must firmly place the

demands set out in the Charter for Women for

an end to gender-based oppression and

exploitation. We are not only against what

those in power are doing to us now, we are for

an achievable and fairer future.H

Liz Payne is the Communist Party’s

national women's organiser

http://thepeoplescharter.org/

Unity!

There is analternative!

We need a radical agenda to counter ConDem destruction

Communists at the TUC Women’s Conference March 2012

Lies and statistics by Joanne Stevenson

Unemployment has been rising

amongst woman at a faster rate than

that of men. 9% up for women in 2011

compared to a 6% increase in male

unemployment.

Women form 46% of all employed. But

60% of those economically inactive are

women. Over 74% of part-time workers and

52% of temporary workers are female and this

concentration is escalating. A significant

increase of 4.3% of female temporary workers

was recorded between October-December,

compared to a mere 0.5% rise amongst men.

Women are more likely to have to hold

down more than one job, with 57% of those

with a second job being women.

Women form the majority of part-time,

temporary, and precarious workers but this is

not mainly because women want only this type

of work as it is ‘more conducive to child care’.

In 2011, 11% of all females stated that they

had taken a PT job simply because they

couldn’t find FT work – a 14% increase in

one year. Although over 75% of women part-

timers say it’s because they didn’t want a FT

job. However this does not appear to be the

case for female temporary workers.

But the worst aspect relating to

unemployment and women must be the Lone

Parents’ Claimant Count. The step rise shown

on the graph above says it all.H

Joanne Stevenson is the women’s organiser of

the West Midlands Communist Party

by Anita Halpin

European Central Bank President

Mario Draghi has defined the current

direction of the European Union when

he declared last month that the

European Social Model has ‘gone’; the

economic priority was to make EU

markets fully flexible by ending labour

privileges.

So the myth of the ‘social’ chapter, the

reason so many trades unionists have loyally

supported the EU, is finally debunked and it

is now time for workers to call for Britain’s

withdrawal from the EU. It is the only way to

recover democratic control over our economy

to salvage manufacturing and prevent further

erosion of employment rights and the welfare

state.

Today the EU serves only the interests of

big business and the banks. That is why

Cameron supports the Single Market; it

enables the City of London to continue to

dominate EU finance and banking.

Obama’s successful stimulus to the US

motor industry would be illegal within the EU,

because all sections of the public sector must

be open to competition and privatisation thus

preventing government action to save failing

firms, such as Bombardier. The EU’s anti-

democratic and pro-big business character

has been fully exposed during the financial

crisis as it replaced elected governments and

imposed drastically deflationary policies on

one country after another. Withdrawal would

strengthen the position of all those in Europe

fighting to preserve to defend their

democracies and halt a race to the bottom.

Once outside, Britain could negotiate

bilateral trade arrangements with the EU on

the same basis as Switzerland. Like

Switzerland, Britain imports more from the EU

than it exports: in 2008 228 billion euros

imports as against 178 billion exports

(Switzerland is roughly the same with 98

billion imports; 80 billion exports).

A British government could then adopt a

truly internationalist trade policy and break

with neo-liberalism. It would once more be

free to implement Left-Wing policies and

workers would no longer be subject to the

anti-trade union judgements of the EU Court

of Justice – not to be confused with the non-

EU and much more progressive European

Court of Human Rights which Cameron is

currently attacking.

That is why we have a duty to say enough is

enough: we want to get out.H

Anita Halpin is the Communist Party’s

trade union coordinator

For the rightsof womenby Anita Wright

The National Assembly of Women has

a long and proud history of

campaigning for peace, equality and

internationalism.

Founded on the 8 March 1952 at St Pancras

Town Hall in London, the conference, chaired

by Labour MP Monica Felton, brought

together over 1,390 women from across the

country and from many walks of life

determined to fight for women’s political,

social economic rights and the conditions for

the happy development of all children and

future generations in a world free from wars.

These aspirations echoed the calls of an

international Congress of Women held in Paris

on 1 December 1945. Women from forty-one

countries, many of whom including British

delegates had worked together in the

International Women’s Day Committee, came

together to establish the Women’s

International Democratic Federation (WIDF).

Since its inception, the WIDF has enabled

women from all over the globe to come

together to share experiences and debate the

social, political and economic position of

women. Through its status as an NGO it has

also campaigned for women’s voices to be

heard in the UN.

The NAW continues to work closely with

women’s organisations nationally and

internationally and to fight for the principles

set out at its inaugural conference in 1952.

In this, its 60th anniversary year, it will be

sending delegates to the XV Congress of the

WIDF in Brazil in April as well as organising

a major conference in Sheffield in July 2012

with the aim of bringing together sisters in

Britain actively involved in the labour

movement and women’s campaign groups to

consider the impact on women of the austerity

measures being imposed on Europe and the

significant political changes taking place in

Africa and the Middle East. H

www.sisters.org.uk

Anita Wright is a member of the Communist

Party executive committee and the NAW’s

executive

EU no! Time to go!

Women workers from the militant

PAME union front striking against EU

austerity and the Greek plutocracy

28 March All out forpensionsjustice

Broadening the

Battlelines: the

pensions

struggle

by Bill

Greenshields

ISBN 978-1-908315-07-6

£1.50 from www.communist-party.org.uk

Money, money money H It’s just over

three years since the Bank of England set

interest rates at a miserly 0.5 per cent. And

‘miserly’ is no exaggeration. This low

‘emergency’ interest rate has cost (or lost)

savers £60bn. Research by Guardian Money

further reveals that banks removed interest

payments from millions of current accounts

and are now hoarding £108bn not returning a

penny. Not working for the individual saver

but, as Marx taught us money is a commodity,

so working capital for banks to continue to

rack up mega profits and pay bonuses.

Who represents us? H There is a crisis

of political representation for the Labour

movement. Recent statements from Labour

Party leaders confirm their broad support for

the rationale and approach of the Con-Dem

government towards public spending cuts,

public-sector wages and pensions and on

welfare benefits

Our labour movement needs to face up to its

responsibilities, in the knowledge that

millions of people look to its organisations for

support and solidarity.

As a contribution to the broad, inclusive and

intensive discussion that we believe is needed

on the left and in the labour movement, the

Communist Party has issued an open letter

http://tinyurl.com/6ude6gd

For a People’s Britain NOT a Banker's

Britain H The 31 March Morning Star

conference is shaping up to be one of the

biggest, broadest events of 2012 with full

opportunity to take part in debates

DETAILS http://tinyurl.com/79yty9a

Our civilrights underattack by Carolyn Jones

We all know that Britain has the most

restrictive trade union legislation in

western Europe, and the onslaught

continues.

There are more attacks on workplace rights

including banning strikes in more essential

services; further restrictions on ballot

procedures, and ending facility time.

And an even wider attack on access to

justice with proposals to increase the

qualifying period for unfair dismissal from one

year to two; exempting small firms from

dismissal regulation, and reducing protection

for strikers from 12 weeks to eight.

The worst curtailment of civil rights comes

with proposals that workers will have to pay a

fee of £250 to lodge a tribunal claim and a

further fee of £1,250 if the case goes to a

hearing. Every dispute involves two players,

but there are no proposals to make employers

contribute to the costs.

Set all this alongside further cuts of £350

million to the legal aid system and you can

see how workers are being regulated out of the

justice system and denied a collective voice at

work - all at a time when they most need

protection.

But how exactly are workers and their

unions expected to respond to austerity

measures that eat away at jobs, pensions,

standards of living and workplace rights?

Hard-working families didn't dig us into this

economic hole and trade union leaders are

simply trying to ensure their members don't

shoulder the burden of digging out the

bankers.

What is the point of a judicial system that

workers cannot afford? Be warned - if you

create a class of people disenfranchised from

civil justice then you leave them with little

choice but to engage in civil disobedience.

So, in our view, Unite leader Len

McCluskey was quire correct when he talked

of the possibility of ‘civil disobedience’ this

summer. His job is to look after the interests of

members, whether they be bus drivers or

health-care assistants; and that’s what he was

doing. He should be applauded not villifed by

the cap press and his own party.H

Carolyn Jones is a member of the

Communist Party’s executive committee

Effective solidarity action with the

Grunwick strikers set the bosses

on the road to anti-union laws

I want to join the Communist Party oPlease send me more information o

Name

Address

e mail phone

return to CPB Ruskin House 23 Coombe Road Croydon CR0 1BD

(or hand to a communist at the conference, you know who they are)

Join Britain’s party of workingclass power and liberation

A historylessonby Mary Davis

In 1975 the TUC launched the aims

listed in the leaflet reproduced above.

How similar are these to what women

want in 2012? Compare this to our

Charter for Women launched in 2004

and make up your mind.

In society

• Highlight the feminisation of poverty and

campaign to reverse cuts in welfare state and

public services.

• Expose the ideologies that are used to

perpetuate women’s inequality (for example,

the notion of ‘family values’ and the ‘family

wage’).

• Draw attention to the role of the media and

other cultural agencies in shaping gender

identities that reinforce the unequal

relationships between men and women.

• Campaign for greater support for lone

mothers, carers and women subjected to

domestic and other violence.

• End the oppression of Lesbian, Bisexual

and Trans women.

• Improve access and rights to abortion.

• Ensure that women and girls are entitled to

the full range of free and high quality

educational provision (from nursery to

university) and subject choice.

• End women pensioner poverty by paying

men and women equal State Pensions and

restoring the link to average earnings or

prices, whichever is the higher

At work

• Campaign to end institutional and other

forms of racism and ensure that the status

and pay of Black women workers is a

bargaining priority.

• Campaign to reduce the gender pay gap and

highlight its causes.

• End job segregation by improving training

and opportunities for women.

• Ensure that unions fight more equal value

claims.

• Campaign to change equal pay law to

permit “class action” (group claims) and

remove employer ‘get out’ clauses.

• Campaign to raise the level of national

minimum wage to at least half, and rising to at

least two-thirds of male median earnings.

• Demand statutory pay audits.

• Equalise opportunities and improve

conditions for women workers.

• Demand full-time right for part time

workers.

• Root out bullying and sexual harassment.

• End casualisation and especially zero hours

contracts.

• Reduce job segregation by providing

training opportunities for women in

nontraditional areas.

• Campaign for affordable child care

including pre-, after-school and holiday

provision.

• Campaign for a shorter working week for

all.

• Improve maternity leave and pay, including

paid paternity leave.

• Campaign for a change in the qualification

criteria in the Industrial Injuries/Disability

Benefit scheme, to end discrimination against

women and in particular to extend the list of

disorders in the prescribed disease schedules.

In the labour movement

• Tackle the under-representation of women

in the labour and trade union movement

structures by proportionality and other

measures.

• Ensure the accountability of women’s

structures to women.

• Maintain and extend women’s committees,

women’s courses and other measures to

ensure that women’s issues/concerns are

collectively articulated and actioned.

• Campaign to raise the profile of the TUC,

STUC and Welsh TUC’s women’s conferences

as the ‘parliaments of working women’.H

http://www.charterforwomen.org.uk

Morning Stardaily paper of the left £1 from your newsagentH