Steel Workers Should Demand
a New Direction for the Economy

Tata Steel Special Profiles - Skinningrove On October 15, Tata Steel, an Indian-based global steel monopoly which owns the majority of the steel industry in Britain and is the second biggest steel producer in Europe, announced that it had signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with a reported “vulture capitalist” company, the Klesch Group, to purchase the Long Products Europe business from Tata Steel. Long Products Europe produces a wide range of steel products including sections, rails, wire rods, special profiles and plates for the Rail, Yellow Goods (heavy duty equipment), Energy and Construction sectors. With approximately 6,500 employees, it currently produces around 3 million tons and has the capacity to produce up to 5 million tons annually. Tata Steel’s Long Products Europe includes: Scunthorpe integrated steelworks, Teesside Beam Mill - Lackenby, Special Profiles - Skinningrove and Darlington, Dalzell Plate Mill - Scotland, Clydebridge - Scotland, Immingham Bulk Terminal (port terminal), Hayange Rail Mill - north east France, Engineering workshop - Workington, Rail consultancy - York and may include a further 20 distribution sites in England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany according to the announcement.

This latest development comes after Karl Koehler, the chief executive of Tata Steel, said that the steel industry has come “through the worst” in Europe and that the group’s Long Products division “is moving towards” break even. The Klesch Group says on its website that it “is a global industrial company that acquires commodity producing companies, applies optimisation techniques to efficiently run their operations and manages risk through commodity trading strategies”. Frank Roy, Scottish Labour MP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said in Parliament that Klesch had a history of “asset stripping and dumping companies across Europe”. Both Prime Minister David Cameron, when questioned in Parliament by Frank Roy,
Tata Steel's Scunthorpe Steelworks MP on October 22, and Business Secretary Vince Cable in a statement issued to the press, seem unconcerned with this latest threat to the steel industry and the jobs of steel workers and both brushed off the matter with only that they should “talk” to the Klesch Group. Vince Cable also went further and said that this was the “harsh reality” of trading conditions in parts of the steel industry. He said, “I met the global head of Tata in India this week and he has personally re-affirmed to me his company’s commitment to the British steel industry and to investing substantially in Port Talbot and strip steel.” He then said he and his officials will continue to work closely with Tata Steel and “seek to meet the potential buyer, Klesch, to understand more about their plans”. Then he welcomed the Klesch Group’s “stated intention to support the continuity of the business”.

The National Trade Union Steel Co-ordinating Committee, which includes Community, Unite, GMB and UCATT, immediately condemned Tata Steel for its failure to consult with worker representatives before any announcement and demanded more time for negotiations. They asked Tata Steel to assist an “independent consultant” Syndex, which they have brought in to look at alternative action and this was agreed in an announcement by Tata Steel. Union representatives also raised concerns about the implications for their pensions during a meeting at the Trades Union Congress in London. They warned that they would ballot their members for industrial action if Tata made any moves against the British Steel Pension Scheme, whose fund value fell to £12.7bn over its last financial year.

Some commentators have pointed out that the “harsh realities” that the government is talking about to justify the sell-off of this steel products industry to “vulture capitalists” boil down to the “strength” of sterling against the Euro and the “high cost” of
Steel workers fighting closure of Redcar blast furnace, 2009energy. These commentators said that the government could intervene if not on the strength of sterling certainly on the cost of energy. On the back of their claims what the commentators are suggesting is that the government subsidise both Tata Steel and the energy monopolies for the cost of energy. In other words, the solution is to pay the steel monopoly, without any claim against the huge profits of the privatised energy and other monopolies. Of course, the government should intervene to protect the steel industry against these monopolies, not to pay them but to end their wrecking of the economy, make the claims against them on behalf of society, so as to plan and benefit the economy that it meets the needs of a modern economy in steel production.

Also, the role of these comments is to embroil the workers further in capital centred solutions that the only alternative to “vulture capitalists” is to pay the very global monopolies that have and are already carving up and wrecking the steel industry in Britain and in other countries. The solution lies not in workers looking for alternative capital-centred solutions but in demanding a new direction for the economy. This means the workers taking up their own political programme in the Workers' Opposition and fighting to place their political alternative at the centre of politics in Britain.

What is this alternative? Any analysis of the steel industry shows that it is a vital part of the economy, and needs to be transformed from serving the interests of the owners of capital-centred global monopolies to serving the needs of the peoples and communities in each country where it is based. For example, whilst Tata Steel claims to aim to “create an overall benefit for society”, the real aim of these monopolies is to eliminate their competition so as to profit from such vital sectors of the economy which have been built by the accumulated added value of steel workers in each country over decades. Such monopolies ruthlessly close down steel works and wreck national economies, the lives of steel workers and their communities as Tata Steel attempted in Redcar in 2010, and US steel is attempting in Canada and in other countries.

Canadian steel workers on May Day saying no to the wrecking
of the Canadian steel industry and pensions by the US Steel monopolyThe history of steel-making in Britain bears this out. The British Steel Corporation had been brought into state ownership of 90% of British steel making in 1967. But because the working class and people did not have control of their own state and economy it became instead a crisis of state monopoly capitalism, where the financial elite represented by Thatcher demanded that it be broken up, sold off and directly controlled by them for maximum profit regardless of the devastation of the lives and communities of workers in steel. In the 1980s, the steelworkers fought a bitter battle against the dismantling of the industry in a 13-week national strike. Margaret Thatcher brought in Ian MacGregor to oversee this destruction, which more than halved the workforce from 268,500 to 130,000. Corus was formed in October 1999 through the merger of British Steel and the Dutch monopoly Koninklijke Hoogovens. In April 2007, Corus itself was taken over and became a subsidiary of Tata Steel, as Tata Steel Europe. Today, steel workers continue to fight to save the steel industry and oppose the job losses and wrecking of the industry. The people of Teesside and the Blast Furnace steel workers fought to re-open their steel plant in Redcar after its closure in 2010 and it re-opened in 2012 under the ownership of Thai steel company SSI. At this time, Tata Steel employs 50,000 in Europe with around 21,000 in the steel industry in Scotland, Wales and the north of England and the Midlands.

This whole history of steel-making underlines that the economy is based on social production and that the privately owned capital-centred economy will only further wreck steel production and all that vitally accumulated wealth and skills of the workers. The working class must take up its own independent programme for society and build its Workers’ Opposition that ends this wrecking and demand a modern economy that is capable of uninterrupted extended reproduction, where more is put into the economy than is taken out. A new direction that will start to end the vagaries of the present global economy and contribute to charting a way out of the crisis and building in its stead a modern socialised economy.

In a position statement of October 2014, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has emphasised that the NHS needs to be protected from TTIP. The position statement points out that there are widespread concerns that TTIP is being negotiated in secret, with a purely economic focus and with little attention to the impact on public services. It says, “There is very real concern that this will adversely affect patient care and members’ terms and conditions of work, and could potentially lower the overall standards of care.”

The RCN statements points out, “TTIP could further open up the NHS to American private businesses, which could be legally able to sue if future governments decide to change existing legislation in relation to health services. There is concern that this could lead to further marketisation within the NHS and prevent repeal of existing legislation which has encouraged marketisation of the NHS.

“Another area of concern with TTIP is the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which would allow an unelected tribunal to pass judgement on member state legislation in relation to compatibility with TTIP. The European Commission conducted a consultation on this mechanism to which the RCN responded. This lack of legal clarity and potential for legal challenge may also mean that governments refuse to adopt progressive legislative measures in relation to health policy, leading to regulatory ‘chill’ in health.”

The RCN warns that the NHS and all publicly funded health care will be at increased risk of privatisation unless health services are explicitly exempted from TTIP.

The RCN has now announced that it is writing to the government and to all of the Britain’s MEPs to express its concern regarding TTIP’s implications for the NHS and future health policy. It is calling for complete transparency in the TTIP negotiation process and for politicians to make sure that the NHS is protected from the consequences of the deal.

Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive General Secretary of the RCN, said: “Health workers, patients, and the public want a cast-iron guarantee that TTIP will not leave the NHS vulnerable to privatisation through the backdoor. Any new trade agreement between the EU and the US must not include health services. It’s also a crucial issue of national sovereignty and democracy that the UK government retains the right to change existing legislation in relation to health services without fear of legal challenge from business interests.”

RMT Research Exposes Global Monopolies’ Ownership of Rail Franchises

Recent research by transport trades union RMT has exposed that three quarters of the rail franchises across Britain are now owned by foreign state-owned or backed rail companies. This exposes the grip of neo-liberal globalisation on rail transport.

RMT has called for an urgent Parliamentary Inquiry to review this situation, whereby foreign state-owned rail companies are using profits earned through operating franchises in Britain. The RMT points out that a situation whereby the profits have been acquired through ever increasing passenger fares and taxpayer subsidies makes the situation more in need of review and radical reform.

A commentary in Action for Rail relates that a German Transport Ministry spokesperson, in reference to its state-owned company Deutsche Bahn, recently admitted: “We’re skimming profit from the entire Deutsche Bahn and ensuring that it is anchored in our budget – that way we can make sure it is invested in the rail network here in Germany.”

Train company Abellio, the international arm of Nederlandse Spoorwegen, a rail company wholly owned by the Dutch government and which holds a concession to run the majority of rail lines in Holland, was recently announced as the winner of the tender for ScotRail. Abellio currently operates a network in Britain which is two and half times larger than the Netherlands.

The Westminster government is determined to pursue its neo-liberal agenda which upholds monopoly right as against public right. Even the East Coast main line is due to be re-privatised after five years following the failure of the two previous private train operators, despite the fact of returning over £1 billion to the Treasury. The ownership of a majority of the rest of the train operating franchises by global and state-owned monopolies is siphoning off even more funds from the economy.

The labour of all the workers connected with the rail transport industry is creating enormous value which is being appropriated by not only global rail monopolies but is of enormous benefit to other monopolies which make use of the rail network, both in terms of freight but also through the transport of their own workers by rail.

The Workers’ Opposition is dedicated to strengthening the workers’ movement to oppose monopoly right and uphold public right.

Note:

RMT Research: Foreign State owned / backed rail domination of UK rail

In a statement from the Ministry of Defence on October 27, the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, referred to the evacuation of Afghanistan as a “historic moment” for Britain’s Armed Forces, which he claimed were leaving that country with “heads held high”. In fact the thirteen year long occupation of Afghanistan by successive British governments and their allies, allegedly in the interests of “national security”, and as part of the “war against terror” has ended in ignominy but left the “cockpit of Asia” completely dependent on Anglo-American imperialism and the other big powers allied to it.

Establishing what is in effect a proxy state in Afghanistan is estimated to have cost almost £40 billion and the lives of over 20,000 Afghans as well as over four hundred and fifty British troops. The British government will continue to maintain Afghanistan at an estimated cost of at least £250 million a year. In addition, and despite the fanfare about a “historic moment”, several hundred British troops will remain in the country in order to strengthen NATO control over the Afghan National Security Forces.

The criminal activity of successive British governments and their allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere can be seen as part of their intention to intervene globally, but particularly in central Asia in contention with Russia, China and others. British intervention in this region, as well as in Africa and elsewhere, is based on a warmongering Westminster consensus of all the major parties and has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, increased instability across whole regions of the world and has therefore done nothing to improve the lives or security of people in Britain or elsewhere.

Indeed the instability caused by previous Anglo-American-led intervention is one of the major factors fuelling current conflicts in western Asia and has created the conditions for the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This sinister organisation has dubious origins and still appears to be closely connected to those who now claim to be determined to “degrade” it. Its existence is the new justification for another “war against terror” and the British government’s military intervention in Iraq, as well as in Syria, where it is pursuing a policy of destabilisation and regime change aimed at the government of Bashir al-Assad. Only last week the Foreign Secretary was welcoming a new raft of EU sanctions against Syria and by turning truth on its head arguing that it was the Syrian government rather than the actions of Britain and its allies that had brought such destruction and instability to that country.

Just as in the past, when Britain and the US sought to build international coalitions to intervene militarily and to hide their true aims by referring to the loftiest of ideals, today they have established the so-called Global Coalition to Combat ISIL with much talk of tackling extremism and establishing security. But the current military action consisting mainly of airstrikes has done no such thing and just as in Afghanistan seems intended to last for many years. Britain and the big powers and their allies remain determined to reorder the world according to their geo-political interests and in contention with their rivals. It is clear that those under the leadership of the US wish to establish a government in Iraq that more closely follows their diktat, while in Syria they have brazenly expressed the desire for regime change and refuse to even recognise the existing government.

As the Prime Minister made clear in his recent speech to the UN, his government remains committed to a policy of warmongering and military intervention throughout the world, not just in western Asia but also in North and West Africa and elsewhere. It is acting in the interests of monopolies and big financial institutions and with the intention of preventing the world’s peoples from finding solutions to the problems that confront them. It presents the state terrorism that it and its allies carry out in a variety of guises, which should no longer fool anyone. The present government may claim that its intervention is undertaken to bring security and stability but the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya show otherwise.

In opposition to the warmongering and global instability created by the government and the major parties at Westminster stand the great majority of people in Britain who in their millions have demonstrated and voiced their opposition to war, war preparations and all forms of intervention for many years. This opposition has even been felt in Parliament where the government has been unable to gain support for open military intervention against Syria and has been forced to modify the nature of its criminal activities. The anti-war forces must seriously discuss how their opposition can be further strengthened, how they can organise to stay the hands of the warmongers and establish the conditions for the creation of an anti-war government.

No British Troops on Foreign Soil!
No to State Terrorism!