TPP threatens and betrays the Australian people

Vanguard February 2014 p. 7
Bill F.

 

Negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement are currently being concluded in Singapore, and look like caving in to demands by US imperialism to include so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions. (ISDS)

At the secretive talks are trade delegations from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam. Australian Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb will inevitably sign on the dotted line sometime in the next few months.

He will be signing a document of treachery and betrayal which will allow foreign corporate monopolies to sue Australian governments for introducing or maintaining laws and regulations that prevent or hinder the corporations’ ability to make profits – laws such as health and safety regulations, environmental protections and preservations, Australian content quotas for TV, subsidies for art and culture, even quarantine provisions!

ISDS clauses in an obscure trade agreement with Hong Kong have already been invoked by subsidiary of tobacco monopoly Philip Morris to take Australia to an international tribunal over its plain packaging laws, despite having lost its case in the Australian High Court.

Robb already has form on this. Only a few months ago he signed off on a "free trade" deal with South Korea which included ISDS clauses.

The Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has refused a Senate request to see the text of the TPP before it is signed and it won’t even be debated. Parliament may get to see it when it comes up for formal ratification, but that’s a rubber stamp job with only 20 days provided for any sort of scrutiny, let alone public consultation and debate.

It just demonstrates the irrelevance of parliament when it comes to issues of the economic and political agenda of US imperialism. Like the people, it is just brushed aside!

It also demonstrates why the Australian people can’t rely on parliament and treacherous politicians to defend either our well-being or our national independence.

The only guarantee of this is to cast out imperialist interests and restructure society so that working people own and control the wealth and resources rather than big corporate monopolies.

Nation-wide meetings and rallies are being organised in all the capital cities on February 7^th to expose and condemn the imposition of this treacherous deal.

Melbourne: 6 pm City Square

Brisbane: 4 pm Parliament House

Sydney: 12 pm Sydney Town Hall

Perth: 1 pm State Library

 

State election in March as SA workers face jobs crisis

Vanguard February 2014 p. 8
Ned K.

The SA parliamentary election outcome on 15 March this year will give little hope to thousands of blue and white collar workers in SA.

Neither the current Labor government nor the Liberal Party “Opposition” have any answers to the economic crisis facing working people. This crisis will intensify as the closure of General Motors operations at the northern suburb of Elizabeth will add to a manufacturing industry in the state already in crisis.

According to research done by the manufacturing union, AMWU, 1 in every 5 SA manufacturing workers lost their jobs between 2008 and 2012. The number of jobs lost was 19,600, a 20.7% reduction, compared with a 9.9% reduction (105,900) manufacturing jobs nationally in the same period.

The AMWU research predicted that if this trend continued in the state, a further 15,000 manufacturing jobs over the next five year period 2013 to 2018 would be lost. This estimate was made prior to General Motors’ announced closure of the Elizabeth car plant by 2017..

Research by John Spoehr and others from the University of Adelaide demonstrates that these job losses in manufacturing are concentrated in the western and northern suburbs of Adelaide, where unemployment is already as high as 20% in some suburbs and 9.1% overall. Added to this is underemployment: workers who want and need to work more hours per week to exist with a minimum of dignity (see State of South Australia –Turbulent Times, edited by John Spoehr, 2013).

Even if the ‘mining boom’ took off in SA with the expansion of Olympic Dam and/or other mines, this will not solve the high unemployment crisis caused by mainly multinational corporations’ decisions to continue to scale down manufacturing in the state. In 2012, mining in SA employed 12,953 people. Manufacturing employed 74,763. Both Labor and Liberal Party leaders in SA still talk of mining as a potential saviour, but they have both shifted their attention to the defence industry at Port Adelaide and nearby northern suburbs. These industries do employ a sizeable number of the 74,763 manufacturing jobs in the state, but the decision-making of where these defence products are made and how many are made is in the hands of multinational companies.

Neither state Labor or Liberal Party leaders confront this central question of ownership of the economic lifelines of the state and where economic power currently lies.

The political leader who boldly mobilises the people’s support for a publicly owned manufacturing base in SA will have widespread support leading up to the election.

However we should not hold our breath waiting for such an announcement!

Whatever happened to neoliberalism?

Vanguard February 2014 p. 8
Verity M.

Bourgeois economists  have gone quiet on neoliberalism of late which does not mean  it has been abandoned as an economic and political strategy to make the working class pay for a system in crisis.

Neoliberalism builds on and reinforces the requirement that capital and the state act in tandem to restore profit certainty and the preservation of the system. 

The primary role of the state is to ensure that favourable conditions exist for the investment of the surplus workers  have created for capital.  If that means privatising public assets or importing workers either to break strikes as in the 1998 waterside workers'  struggle or to create a surplus supply of workers as a means of controlling wages then so be it.

We are already seeing a new spate of privatisation of public assets as the states are being urged to sell off 'old' assets such as wharves to pay for new infrastructure which will undoubtedly be handed over to private developers.

Privatisation is not just about getting some cash in hand to ameliorate the impact of high government debt; it is also about ensuring that capital has state-created spaces for the realisation of profits. 
 

(Above: Australian postal workers are the next to be sacrificed on the altar of austerity measures)

Productivity is another sacred cow, usually measured in amount produced per working hour.  Productivity, closely related to profits, can be increased by improved technology, better methods of organising the workspace etc but the cheapest way is to have workers work for less.  Productivity is also measured by profits realised out of the surplus accumulated from the labour of  workers.

Workers and the general population receive concessions and the occasional handout when things are going well but the needs of capital will always take precedence over the needs of the people.

Neo liberalism, applied to varying degrees depending on the immediate and long term needs of capital, becomes apparent in times of economic crisis and less obvious in the good times (for capital that is) but it is always there: a system of applied economics incorporating in particular, wage control, destruction of working class organisations and privatisation of public assets.

A decline in profit as is the case in economic crises cannot be tolerated.  Profitability  has to be restored and continually increased.  Profits decline for a variety of reasons - overproduction, under consumption resulting from wage cuts. and people's loss of faith in the economic system and the inherent tendency of the rate of profit to fall as  explained by Marx.

Profits tend to fall as technology replaces workers.  It must make a lot of sense to capitalists to replace labour with machinery which works long hours without complaint and doesn't go on strike, but unfortunately (for capital) only human labour can produce what Marx called surplus value derived from free labour time which makes up the bulk of profit- just one of the many contradictions that bedevil capitalism.

Cutting wages and public services will always be the first option of capital with the blessing of the state.  We are currently being groomed to accept the necessity of wage ‘restraint'.  Employers organisations are all over the media telling us that the basic wage of 'like' economies is much less than ours; promised improvement in child-care workers’ wages is being reviewed while the conservatives’ own newspaper The Australian tells us that if car workers want a job they should accept the wage the company can afford or move on, all being reinforced by a manufactured budget crises.

When the economy slows and profits decline governments are called upon to legislate change and they invariably do so whichever parliamentary party holds office.  Workers are well aware of the threats to their organisations and to their job security.  Fortunately, or unfortunately for the powers that be, workers are many and the powerful are few, and they will be widely supported in the struggle for a truly just society and a people's democracy that serves the majority of the people.

"Lock the Gate" campaign unites many people in places least expected

Vanguard February 2014
(We apologise that this article was not published in the hard copy edition of Vanguard)
Ned K.

(Above: Residents of Robe rally against Beach Energy towards the end of January 2014)

The “Lock The Gate” campaign against the expansion in to agricultural land by Coal Seam Gas (CSG) companies is spreading at a rapid rate across Australia wherever the profit hungry CGS companies appear. CSG exploration using the method of fracking is strongly opposed by thousands of rural communities and regional communities.

Fracking involves the creation of fractures in rock formations underground by injecting fluids containing toxic chemicals in solution into cracks to force them to open. The larger fissures allow oil and gas to flow out of the formation and in to the well bore from where it can be extracted. Large volumes of water are required to mix with the chemicals in the process.

Opposition to CSG exploration and mining is activating people who would see themselves as ‘law abiding citizens’ and would never have seen the day coming when they were standing on a picket line at a farm gate to prevent a CSG exploration vehicle and equipment from driving on to their farm or vineyard or their neighbours’. In fact many would have voted for the Liberal/National Parties Coalition not just for decades but generations but now can see that neither major political party is a reliable ally in their fight against the CSG companies.

A case in point is the Upper South East small town of Robe and its local government Council. Robe is a small coastal town which comes to life for three months in summer as a laid back holiday destination. It is the last place you would expect to see “Lock The Gate” signs on farm gates in the area or a local hall meeting to organise action against CSG mining company Beach Energy. Beach Energy has a petroleum licence to drill in the Robe area and already drilled once to a depth of 4.5 kilometres!

However in January this year the Robe Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing CSG in the South East and calling for the state government to declare a moratorium on all/any CGS exploration and mining. The resolution reflected local people’s concerns not only about the intrusion of CSG mining on farm land, but also the impact on the vast naturally occurring fresh water aquifer system on the whole community, including the viticulture and wine industry in the South East.

At one of a series of public meetings in the South East organised by local people, the Mayor of Robe attended and spoke about the Council’s resolution and said that other local government Councils in the South East would be approached to support similar resolutions.

Another speaker at the meeting said that there was widespread support for the Lock The Gate movement in the South East, including from the wine industry in the region. Picketing of locations where Beach Energy and other companies intended to start drilling were being organised and many local people had already committed to take a stand at any ‘Lock The Gate” farm entrance.

Fracking as a method of extracting coal seam gas has also met fierce resistance in the USA. In Massachussetts, the state parliament was about to debate a Bill banning any fracking for 10 years. The tide against these voracious mining and petroleum companies is turning.

................

 

Further Reading:

 
Report on Robe community rally:

http://www.borderwatch.com.au/story/2044085/community-rallies-against-gas-giant/?cs=1518

 

http://thesoutheasterntimes.com.au/wordpress/2014/01/coastal-communities-lead-unconventional-mining-opposition/

https://www.facebook.com/Lock.The.Gate.Alliance

http://www.lockthegate.org.au/ 

New "Australian Communist" provides food for thought

February 2014

A new edition of the CPA (M-L) Journal Australian Communist was released in December.

The new edition is dedicated to Sean Murtagh, a metal worker and leading Party member, who died last year.

The Journal provides working class activists with plenty of food for thought.

Intellectual food is as important for working class activists as real food on the table.

Many workers had bad experiences at school and find reading a bit of a hard slog.  It’s a whole lot easier to just veg out in front of the TV after coming home from work or to kill the time and boredom of being out of work.

There is no point beating around the bush – reading about and analysing the issues confronting us in pushing our own agenda and ridding ourselves of the rottenness of capitalism is something we just have to discipline ourselves to do.

Having said that, the first article in the AC is by no means difficult.  It is an edited version of a talk at a gathering of comrades and activists on how to identify and work appropriately with people of different levels of political understanding.  It is down-to-earth and common sense, but very useful in reflecting on one’s own workmates and friends and how to relate to them politically.
 

The second article addresses the question of productivity.  This is the issue that the ruling class carries slung over its shoulder like some giant bludgeon ready to attack the working class on issues that are central to us: wages, working conditions, intensity of work, housing, welfare, education and so on.  The reactionary bourgeoisie even has its own Productivity Commission to provide the arguments and the justification for these attacks.  We’ve got to know the enemy on its own terms and this article is the place to start.

Karl Marx was the pioneering critic of the way that capitalism worked.  He explained the economic laws of motion of modern capitalism.  Every man and his dog that wants a meal ticket out of capitalist academia makes a career of attacking and discrediting Marx’s analysis of capitalism, and the third article examines faults and shortcomings in one of those, namely Professor Steve Keen’s dismissal of much of Marx’s political economy.

Revealing the way in which both Labor and Liberal politicians have embraced neo-liberalism in the field of school education, and the role of the “business community” in setting much of the agenda for what happens in education, is the subject of the fourth article.

Two more articles examine aspects of finance capital, namely, the high Australian dollar and banking profits.  Both topics feature regularly in daily news reports and are matters on which worker activists need to have a handle.

Finally, there is a review of the WA branch of the CFMEU’s publication If You Don’t Fight, You Lose.  It argues that leading comrades in the construction industry such as Paddy Malone, Norm Gallagher and John Cummins must be evaluated as significant leaders of the CPA (M-L) if their true contribution to successes in the union movement is to be understood.

The December 2013 Australian Communist can be downloaded from the Party website: www.vanguard.net.au .

Parliament is a committee that manages the affairs of the wealthy and powerful

Vanguard December 2013 p. 1

Nick G

The momentous trivia comprising the fallout from the September Federal election continues to unravel.

There is the unexpected success in the Senate of Clive Palmer’s private political party.

There is the unexpected emergence of the various right-wing grouplets who have formed an alliance with Palmer’s people.

Nonsense and rorts

There was the will-he-won’t-he win a seat shenanigans focussing on Palmer in the House of Representatives.

There was the long drawn out count in Western Australia and the disappearance of 1375 Senate ballot papers – “never to be recovered” according to special investigator Mick Keelty. 

There was the cynical resignation, just six weeks after his re-election to a six-year term, of Senator Bob Carr.  Three weeks later Kevin Rudd walks from the Parliament to which he was so recently elected.

There were the various travel claim rorts.

Such nonsense as this helps to explain the disenchantment with politicians.

Disenchantment

Something like 500,000 or so people aged between 18 and 24 did not register to vote; almost 740,000 Australians voted informal. That’s over 1 million eligible voters who did not feel sufficiently committed to vote for the major parliamentary parties. 

Enough people voted for non-mainstream grouplets which, with their sophisticated interlocking preference deals, gave them a voice outside the two major parties, reflecting one aspect of the disenchantment that many feel with the mainstream choice that was on offer.

Another was the frequently heard complaint: “I just don’t know who to vote for…I don’t like Abbott, but I can’t vote for Labor”.

While the disenchantment with the main parties and their candidates runs strong, so too does belief in parliamentary democracy. 

Independent working class agenda

Focus on individuals and grouplets is a fog through which the profound truth that governments are but “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (Marx) struggles to make itself seen.

Unless the disenchantment is linked to that truth, it exists as a vacuum that can be preyed upon by populist right-wing and neo-Nazi types.

But it also offers us opportunities for our work in developing an independent working class agenda.

That agenda is not merely to seek certain democratic assurances, certain temporary concessions and short-term gains, but must also serve to tear away from the naked class rule of the exploiters the fig leaf of their parliamentary system.

It promotes working class demands that are expressed in the struggles that go on every day in real life well beyond the musty halls of parliament – struggles for decent, secure jobs, affordable housing, quality healthcare and education, fair and compassionate social services, efficient and reliable public transport, fairly-priced utilities, clean and sustainable energy and agriculture, etc.

All these struggles of the people are part of building a movement that will move beyond the musical chair game of parliament and challenge the power of the corporate monopolies and multinationals that really call the shots.

GMH workers have a go

Vanguard December 2013 p. 2
Bill F.

General Motors Holden workers at the engine plant in Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne have dared to show a bit of fighting solidarity as some faced the prospect of losing their jobs at the end of the year.

More than 150 workers walked off the job on Thursday 14 November when the GMH bosses announced that they would get a maximum of 52 weeks redundancy pay, regardless of years of service.

This was an unexpected kick in the guts for some 30 workers who had seen 70 of their mates take a voluntary package which paid 4 weeks for each year of service, plus another 3.5 weeks.

Having earlier voted to support a three year wage freeze along with cuts to sick leave, overtime and work breaks, the workers had reached their limit. They were hopping mad and just walked off, disgusted at the greed and cunning of General Motors, which had stock-piled engines at Elizabeth plant in South Australia in case of trouble at Fisherman’s Bend.

Of course, GMH scurried off to the Unfair Work Commission to scream "wildcat", "illegal", "outside the EBA bargaining period" and so on. And of course, the Commission duly ordered the workers back to work. But, unfazed, the workers took a few more days off before returning the following week.

At the time of writing, negotiations are continuing between GMH and the Australian Metal Workers Union and some sort of deal will be worked out. Regardless of this, GMH workers everywhere know what to expect if and when the company decides to cease manufacturing motor vehicles in Australia.

Even if it’s only a rearguard action, if you don’t fight, you lose!

............................................
Further reading:

We reprint below a newsletter that references struggles by General Motors and Opel (German subsidiary) in Europe and elsewhere:

From the representatives of the international corporate cooperation GM / PSA
International Newsletter GM-PSA
No. 3 – October 2013
Dear colleagues, dear friends,
herewith you are again receiving current information from our international corporate cooperation at General Motors and PSA:

1. At Opel in Bochum (Germany) a 17 hour-long works meeting took place on 9 and 10 September and was  followed by a 6-hour self-organized strike against the closure. It was the longest works meeting in the factory's history and until now the climax of active resistance of the workforce. With this the staff foiled the attempt to get them to surrender in the face of the closure plans. The colleagues express their thanks for the solidarity messages from Brazil, Spain, Russia, USA and Switzerland. The statement of the trade union at GM St. Petersburg (Russia) states: “It is time for the struggle! Let us fight together! Let us join against the attacks of GM!”
This militant action gave an important signal for the path of the working-class offensive shortly before the federal elections in Germany. It was kept almost completely quiet in the largest media, but this censorship was partly broken through by special editions of the corporate newssheet “Blitz” (“Flash”) and with the help of the public relations work of the MLPD. This action in Bochum was a great encouragement for the militant workers in Germany. In Bochum the plant management made a first concession and postponed the closure of plant 2. The solidarity circle for the strike of the Opel workforce has meanwhile collected more than 30,000 euros for the strike cash box and offers strike payments for the self-organized strike.
Women of the Bochum women's committee “BASTA!” organized a protest action during the International Motor Show in Frankfurt/Main at the exhibition stand of Opel on September 19. The media reported quite a lot about this action and the workers were enthusiastic.

2. After the actions on 10 September against the government pension plans a corporate-wide day of action against the “anti-social compensation plan” of the chairman of the board Varin was carried out at PSA in all of France on 18 September. The colleagues are fighting against wage freezes, unpaid work on Saturdays and further attacks. Another day of action took place on 11 October, and on 15 October the PSA colleagues again participated in the national day of action against the pension plans.

3. In Brazil the struggle against the anti-social policy of the government is continuing. After a national day of action of the trade unions in July new actions are planned for October.

4. The factory for gear units Strasbourg (France) was sold and is now called  Punch Powerglide Strasbourg. The trade union CGT tells us that it will maintain the connections of solidarity and will continue to be available under the address cgt67punch@gmail.com.

5. The trade union CGT at Opel in Saragossa (Spain) refuses to accept that the relocation of production from Korea to Spain (model “Opel Mocca”) is supposed to be bought with concessions and further wage sacrifices.

6. In this context are the plans of General Motors to cut back production in Korea step by step. It is an outrageous anti-union policy of GM that attempts to shift the blame on the militant Korean trade unions. It is a fact that GM is afraid that its comprehensive production in Korea is dependent on the strong Korean working-class movement.
We have expressed our solidarity with the Korean metal workers' union (KMWU) in its struggle against this policy of blackmail.

7. In South Africa 31,000 workers of the entire auto industry of the country went on strike for wage increases on 19 August. GM colleagues also participated.

8. At the beginning of August our colleague Frank Hammer visited the struggling colleagues of ASOTRECOL in Bogota (Columbia) on the second anniversary of their struggle. The colleagues who were dismissed by GM Colmotores have been camping for two years in front of the US embassy to achieve their reinstatement through GM. Frank Hammer's visit is an expression of a solidarity movement for this struggle, which already collected more than 10,000 dollars in donations in the US alone.

9. GM achieved new record sales of more than two million cars on the Chinese market from January till August. This gives cause to reflect that a further increase of production and sales of cars with combustion engines is not compatible with the future of the world climate, the preservation of the natural resources and therefore incompatible with the future of humankind. We auto workers must stand up for a future in accordance with nature with all our strength. If this is not compatible with capitalism, then it must be correct what Evo Morales (President of Bolivia) said: “Either capitalism will die or our Mother Earth”. We would indeed prefer the first.

Furthermore we would like to draw your attention to the website of the International Automotive Workers' Conference to exchange information during the preparation of the International Automotive Workers' Conference in 2015: www.iaar.de