23/06/2008 by admin.

The Convention of The Left is being held as an alternative to the New Labour conference in Manchester.  The aim is to encourage wide participation in debate on The Left, which may lead to the development of ‘charters’ around which socialists can agree to mobilise in unity so as to campaign more effectively. 

After discussion on more general political issues over the weekend of 20-21^st September, the following three days will focus on particular themes, namely Politics (Monday), Public Services (Tuesday) and Peace (Wednesday), each with its own sub-committee.  The Public Services sub-committee covers Education, Health, Housing and Transport; the following concerns the Transport meeting. 

Why is transport an issue?

Any local bus journey will show the main users to be the young and the elderly – namely people on low incomes.  For rural families in poverty the situation can be equally difficult with a car being an unaffordable necessity in the absence of local transport and the closure of local amenities.  High fares can limit travel and lead people to live isolated lives or to refuse employment.  The Oyster card in London has shown how people can be drawn to use public transport.  And are all the lorries speeding up and down the motorways really necessary?  Is there an alternative which meets the needs of people, society and the environment? 

Integrated?

On the political left there is general support for an ‘integrated transport policy’ as the solution.  However, what the word ‘integration’ means in this context is not always clear.   Does it refer to the co-ordinated time-tabling of public transport, such as train connections or bus-train timetables?  Or, regarding haulage, the more efficient use of freight trains and distribution of goods? And how should other forms of transport, such as coach travel, metro/trams/underground, cycling, domestic flights and inland waterways and ferries be integrated into the transport system?  And then there is the private car issue … and, of course, our own in-built transportation, our legs! So, does an integrated transport policy mean the most efficient ‘integration’ of these various forms of transport?  Taking ‘efficient’ here to include energy efficiency (less fuel and pollution), cost efficiency, time efficiency and convenience for the user. A second way to consider ‘integration’ of the transport system is how the movement of people and goods integrates with other aspects of society.  This perspective would require consideration of issues such as:

• The environment and pollution, including noise pollution
• The effect of various forms of transport and associated infrastructure on local communities
• Congestion and parking
• The effects of the ‘school run’ and how to minimise this
• Safety – in terms of transport workers, health, accidents and late night travel in public transport
• The needs of rural communities, adolescents, young adults and the elderly.
• Minimising the need to travel by retaining local schools, Post Offices, shops and health care, de-centralised employment and local food production.

 A third aspect of integration is that between public and private ownership.  There is a consensus amongst socialist, and more widely, that all aspects of rail transport should be in public ownership or re-nationalised.  But there could be debate around how a nationalised railway is run, and how this is made accountable to its users.  Who should own and/or control the local bus services, the trams, metro etc?  How should road haulage be controlled and owned?  And ferries?  How can the various roles of the government, the local authority and local/regional transport committee and the private sector be integrated?  Who pays, and what is the role of subsidies?   

Input to the debate

These issues are raised in order to stimulate debate and clear realistic thinking about the sort of transport policy we, as socialists, would support.  As it will be impossible to discuss all the above, never mind other issues that may be raised, the following is proposed: 

a)         a debate on transport starts on the website now, prior to the Convention in September. 
b)         organisations (such as transport Trade Unions, political parties and pressure groups) which have an existing transport policy, submit this, or a summary, to the Convention of The Left website discussion. 
c)         submissions and comments from individuals are equally welcome, especially thoughts about various forms of integration.  It would be particularly interesting to learn about successful transport systems operating in other European countries and how these are organised, run and financed. 
d)         Questions and issues arising from these submissions will be available before the Transport meeting on 23^rd September.  Organisations are also welcome to bring a summary of their own transport policies to the meeting to circulate.  

Aim of the Transport meeting:

The aim of the meeting is to initiate ideas for an integrated transport policy, which can be further developed at a later stage, and to identify the first steps needed to achieve this.  For example, people can’t be expected to use their cars less until there is a more convenient, safe and reliable alternative for a similar cost – so do we start by campaigning for off-the-road cycle routes to schools and major centres of employment?   The actual issues discussed at the meeting will be those identified by contributors to the pre-meeting debate, or raised at the meeting, as being most relevant in the context of an overall integrated transport policy which is based on meeting people’s needs, and not on private profit. 

Ann Papageorgiou – June 2008

Posted in Planet, People not profit, Statements | 1 Comment »

17/04/2008 by admin.

A theme on trade unionism and workplace organisation in the UK and internationally

As was pointed out at the ‘big’ meeting, there is a major gap in the themes of the Convention as there is nothing specifically aimed at trade unionists or taking up trade union issues other than privatisation in the UK and internationally. A theme on trade unionism could focus both on drawing together current experiences and on dealing with the major political issues facing trade unionists.

I suggest setting up another sub-group to work out a detailed plan with speakers etc and a meeting to get together those interested specifically in this area.Here are some ideas to kick around for possible sessions. These are only suggestions and obviously open to amendments, additions and deletions but I think they might form the basis for a viable, relevant and interesting stream.

Organising the unorganised:·
Young workers·
Migrant workers

Where now for the unions?:
Should the unions still support Labour?
Rank and file organisation-Shop stewards network/trades councils; union lefts
Current disputes / Public sector pay freeze

International labour:
Solidarity with Iraqi & Iranian trade unionists
Fighting sweatshop labour: union organisation worldwide
Chinese workers and the Olympics IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INVOLVED, PLEASE CONTACT ME BY EMAIL AT:
BRUCE@BRUCEROB.EU

Comradely,Bruce Robinson

Posted in Power and politics, People not profit, Statements, Planning | 3 Comments »

10/03/2008 by admin.

As socialists we continue to defend the NHS but we need to ask “what are we defending?” by Norma Turner

 The NHS

The founding principles of the NHS we support and hold onto. These were: equitable, universal health care free at the point of use, financed on the basis of people’s ability to pay through progressive taxation. Providing health services would neither be an opportunity to make money nor a charity. To provide a comprehensive, universal, equitable service, the organisation and funding needed to be integrated across the country.

Unfortunately, right from the conception of the NHS, compromises meant these principles could never be fully achieved. Financial restraints meant that only hospitals were included, making it a service for sickness rather than health. GP surgeries, dentists, opticians, community pharmacists were left as private concerns linked to but not accountable to the NHS. Ambulance services, community health, prevention, child health and public health were the responsibility of local authorities. Distinction was made between health and social care. Within the NHS the power of the consultants ensured mental health and geriatric services were marginalised. But the worst compromise was that private health care was allowed to run alongside the NHS.

These compromises have provided the private corporations with a way in to public funding; and successive governments have helped this process. This current Labour Government has been by far the worst, and most inexcusable. Their project is one of changing the NHS from a public service with some semblance of democratic accountability into a full health care market.

In my opinion this process is now beyond the point of no return; it will be fully in place within the lifetime of this Government. The general public will not feel the effects for a few years because the private health care industry is not interested in a purely private market. Its interests lie in becoming for-profit providers in a basic health system funded out of taxation while also providing, for additional fees, a higher quality of service for those who can afford it.

As socialists we can remind people of the founding principles. Before the NHS, the system had only served the rich and the rest lived in fear of ill health. Now people have no experience of a time before the NHS and therefore it is harder to convince them of its importance.

But there is an increasingly unwilling public appetite for the privatisation of everything from private armies, prisons, probation, transport, housing, education, health and social services, water, and on it goes to include the air we breathe. We can link the opposition to what is happening to the health service to the anti-capitalist struggle against the rush to privatise to make the rich richer and the poor poorer across the globe.

A Socialist Alternative

To link these struggles we also have to link our vision. A socially responsible programme of community health care cannot be run outside of a socialist context. I think we can find inspiration and ideas by looking to Cuba.

Article 49 of the Socialist Constitution of the Republic of Cuba states:
“Everyone has the right to the care and protection of their health. The state guarantees this right: by offering free hospital and medical services…; by offering free dental treatment; by developing plans for sanitary efforts, health education, periodic medical exams, general vaccination, and other preventive medical means. In these plans and activities the entire population participates through the social and mass organisations.”

This commitment is achieved through a nationally integrated system of public health in which social legislation about its application is unified with the training programmes of the workers. Public health is integrated with social welfare. Family planning is free, abortion is available on demand. There is a nationalised pharmaceutical industry, a high doctor to patient ratio, and no-one is without access to a doctor either geographically or financially.

Every GP lives in the community they serve, they are highly trained and chosen for training not just on academic achievement but more importantly social criteria. The doctors are part of community activities addressing environmental problems, sources of community stress, e.g. bad housing, family dynamics. They also are involved in organising social, sporting and fun events. There are political structures which enable the whole community to participate in making life decisions around what the community needs and wants.

This works because people are educated from nursery school throughout their whole lives, about health issues, including physical, psychological, social and political aspects needed for a healthy person, and because they develop an obligation to their community. Any health service requires people to adhere to principles of co-operation, equality, self-government and individual freedom.

In Britain the biggest providers of health and social care are not health and social service professionals, it is mothers and carers who provide over £87 billion worth of unpaid care a year.

Long term health depends on strengths of social networks, family structures and economic self-sufficiency. We need a system for instilling values in our young people – of caring and sharing, for community aspirations and involvement in civil society. This requires a high level of education and an understanding and commitment against discrimination, because of class, race, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability.

The current provision of health and social care defines people by what they lack or need and has resulted in people losing a sense of what they have to give, thus becoming inhumane to others.

Children in Cuba learn that the person beside them is healthy if they are kind to each other. Here in this country children learn to grab what they can for themselves, resulting in increased mental illness and suicide among young people.

A World Out of Balance

The other vital consideration in creating a vision of health is tackling global warming. We live in a world out of balance. Thanks to climate change and the results of the free market, we will be faced with both new diseases and old diseases re-emerging.

Already because of increased poverty and poor housing there is an increase of tuberculosis and rickets. Climate change causing floods and testing an ageing sewage system will see the return of enteric water-borne diseases. Also insects will thrive due to global warming in places they previously did not live. We have more mosquitoes and in time malaria will be introduced. We have already seen blue tongue disease in animals from midges. Other bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites will appear, causing disease in humans, plants and animals, threatening the eco-system. Any future discussion on health must be set in the context of strategies of environmental activists.

In conclusion a National Health Service can only be realised within a socialist ideology within which structures of organisation are developed to involve the participation of everyone in the needs of their own communities, linking education and health with environmental issues within an international perspective against global capitalism.

Easy – we start with nationalising the pharmaceutical industry.

Posted in People not profit, Statements | 1 Comment »

13/02/2008 by admin.

By Declan O’Neill

When Labour dumped its formal commitment to “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange” it was the final straw for many in the Labour party who still regarded themselves as socialists.    

In practice, of course, Labour had never challenged the dominance of the market or the supremacy of private property but few, would have predicted how quickly new Labour would rush to privatise those bits of the economy still in public hands. 

 In opposition it was “our air is not for sale” and a commitment to renationalise the railways; in government it was selling off air traffic control and cuddling up to Virgin Rail. Private good, public bad became the new mantra.  As Mark Steel has written in their worship of the market today’s politicians “sound like ancient pagans expressing fear of a bad crop brought by angry gods. And once it descends, all we can do is offer a sacrifice, of a few million jobs and lives ruined and thousands made homeless until the gods are satisfied with our gifts and we can start all over again.”  

New Labour is so desperate to avoid anything that smacks of” old- style nationalisation” that Gordon Brown would rather give Northern Rock to his mate Richard Branson than contemplate taking it into public ownership.  The latest obscenity is the Virgin group’s attempt, responding to the government’s “reform strategy” for the NHS, to move into Primary Healthcare.  

So what is the alternative?  What is wrong with running public services on the basis of peoples’ needs not private profit? Decisions about how and where we use those resources should be made by the people themselves through democratic means.  This does not mean a return to old style nationalisation. In practice the old nationalised industries aped the private sector: their management boards were composed of the great and good – neither workers or users had any real say in the day to day running of public services, never mind strategic direction. 

Yet even at their worst the old nationalised industries were a thousand time better than the privatised chaos we now face. 

The society we aim to build is not one built on ever increasing production and consumption but one democratically run to meet the needs of all humanity. Reclaiming our public services is an essential first step in this process.  We have the resources to do this: our task is to build a movement to transform the system from one built on private greed to one that meets the needs of all humanity.   

Posted in People not profit, Statements | 1 Comment »