May Day in Chesterfield

Tax and the Top 1%

Danny Dorling (photo), who attended our last discussion meeting, has just published a "no-nonsense guide to equality" - see here for details and for a video of Danny talking about this key topic. He has also posted an important item on the "Left Foot Forward" Web-Site about tax and the top 1%. The following is taken from its introduction.

One of the greatest myths that was regurgitated in the aftermath of the budget was the claim the tax take on the rich rises the less they are taxed.

It was said this occurred when Nigel Lawson was chancellor in the 1980s. What actually happened in the 1980s was that as the rich took a greater and greater share of national income the share of income tax they paid went up.

The richest 1% now pay more than a quarter of all direct income tax. This is not because of the 40%, 45% or 50% top tax rate, but because they now take home such huge salaries and bonuses (and incomes in other forms).

Today the best-off 1% take home a greater share than they have done at any time since directly after the First World War.

Allowing the richest 1% to take home more and more income and pay less tax does not create wealth and jobs. Employment levels have been highest in Britain in the years when the richest 1% had their lowest shares of national income, from 1945 to 1979.

The richest 1% didn’t pay a great absolute amount of income tax then because they were not taking such a high and unfair share of all the monies paid out in wages and salaries nationally.

Hat Tip : Jon Williams.

Lack of Employee Representation

Details are provided here about employee representation on boards in sixteen European nations. The UK is not only bottom of the list alphabetically.

Hat Tip : Jon Williams.

"A Nation Deceived" by Ken Curran

The arteries of our parliamentary system have become sclerotic. They are unable to respond to the real heartbeat of a people who feel they have been well and truly misled. There is a growing disquiet about the whole of Britain's future, its role in the world, or what it really means to be British.

I perceive a growing decline in the unity of people in Britain today. This is reflected in the growing interest in the self determination of Scotland and Wales. Writing in a letter in the Guardian recently, Professor Paul Salverson of Huddersfield University argued for a reshaping of the United Kingdom based on regional governments (see his book on the issue here). He believes in an amalgamation of the Yorkshire Region, the North West, the North East and Cumbria. In effect a new region stretching form Berwick-upon-Tweed down to the Trent in the East Midlands; and in the west from Carlisle to the south of Merseyside.

This is a bold idea. It has become increasingly apparent in recent times that the Westminster governmental system does not command the respect of the electorate. In a democracy, reciprocal respect between the government and the governed is the prerequisite needed to build the confidence people require, if they are to feel that they are part of the national family.

Our governmental system is an an anachronism, stuck in the past and out of touch with almost everything around it. None of the political parties have a vision for the future. They offer no future for our young people and almost every part of our public services are in crisis! The services for the elderly in Britain are a national disgrace. The House of Commons is full of self seeking individuals; many lack an honest bone in their bodies. This is not just my opinion. On 5th March, Peter Kellner a national pollster revealed that nearly two-thirds of voters say that politicians lie "all the time" and less than a quarter think that parliament does a good job debating issues of concern to them. Kellner concluded that the figures show that Britain's democratic system is in danger.

It would be unwise to ignore the straws in the wind, yet this is what parliament continues to do. Before these people aspire to lead the nation, they should examine their real motives for wishing to represent them. I have been in the Labour Party for over sixty years and increasingly feel I have been deceived by not one, but by many who have sat in our parliament.

I am not alone in my concern. I feel that I am expressing the concerns of many. I, therefore, feel that if parliament can not reform itself, we must press for reforms which will ensure that we have structures which properly reflect the real needs and concerns of the people. I broadly support the call for a Northern Parliament. For over sixty years the North-South divide has grown and today is a chasm that is wider than ever. If the Westminster Government is not addressing the proper concerns of the North, then perhaps it is time for us to take matters into our own hands, away from a structure dominated by self-seeking individuals who have no real feeling of kinship or empathy with the people they purport to represent.

KEN CURRAN

Record Eleven Government Defeats ; But More Needed

The Government have now lost a record eleven votes on the Legal Aid Bill. The House of Lords have voted to protect disabled people, children, and domestic violence victims from the worst of the legal aid cuts. It's vital that the Government does not overrule these changes. To help, see here.

"Left Of Centre" by Jon Williams

Here is an interesting article by Paul Richards, especially the last few paragraphs - basically what are Labour’s policies going to be if they get elected in 2015?

Yes Labour opposes some awful Tory legislation (e.g. the Health and Social Care Bill), but will Labour reverse these Bills or modify to something that represents our values and beliefs?

I don't attach much weight to Liam Byrne's "Fresh Ideas...review" as it seems to have originated from the same place as "Refounding Labour" - probably "Progress" the party within a party.

It seems Western political language has moved from advocating a capitalist system to an austerity one. The recent economic woes have tarnished capitalist modus operandi, so there is a shift in language to still allow the 1% to continue business as usual.

Let's hope the up and coming NEC Elections will elect candidates who support party democracy and allow ordinary members views to reach the Shadow Cabinet.

Hoping the NHS doesn't become PHS (Private Health Service)!!

JON WILLIAMS

Abdullah Muhsin Outlines The Plight Of the Independent Trade Union Movement in Iraq

Abdullah Mushin has a long term involvement in seeking to establish independent trade unionism in Iraq. He is currently the foreign representative of the Iraqi Teacher's Union and is in daily contact with trade unions in Iraq. This article initially appeared on the web-site of Labour Friends of Iraq. He gives details of the current state of play in the struggle for widespread and independent trade unionism in Iraq. His cause is in need of continuing support by trade unionists in this country.


Nine years after the end of Saddam’s regime, and more than two months since Iraq gained its full national sovereignty, the country is experiencing a state of political chaos at best and extreme disintegration at worst.

This has unfortunately allowed fascists such as Al Qaida and Saddam’s diehard loyalists to kill and maim many innocent Iraqi civilians in the last few weeks with suicide car bombs and the assassination of a former leader of the Iraqi Teachers' Union.

Democrats hoped that the end of Saddam’s authoritarian regime in April 2003 would be a new dawn for Iraq’s once mighty democratic trade union movement to rebuild itself in a democratic and independent fashion from the ashes of wars and dictatorship.

However, Iraq's new political elites are unconcerned about the plight of Iraqis who are living without proper social services and with great insecurity.

Instead, these elites are fighting each other for bigger shares of political power and control of Iraq’s natural resources.

Saddam’s unions disappeared in 2003 but left a bad cultural legacy in the minds of Iraqi workers who see unions as no more than instruments of violence in the hands of the state.

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was openly and democratically created in May 2003 to replace Saddam’s defunct labour fronts.

It aimed to be a workers voice that champions and defends rights to social justice, jobs, fair pay and working conditions. It aimed to arrest and then eliminate Saddam’s cultural legacy.

However, the occupation authorities, from day one, opposed the IFTU by deliberately keeping Saddam’s anti union laws in place and by putting hurdles in its way.

Successive Iraqi governments have endorsed and maintained this opposition towards nascent democratic unions. They have also repeatedly meddled in their internal affairs to control them and, if that failed, to hinder them vehemently.

The failure of democratic politicians (there are many in parliament and government) to make the necessary changes has helped lead to the near total collapse of law and order and Iraq being engulfed by sectarian strife which segregated Iraqi society along lines of ethnicity, religious and ideological and nationalistic affiliations.

This impacted heavily on workers' attitudes, for they were not immune and they also responded in extreme lines. This national political mess led to the creation of opposing unions along sectarian, religious and ideological and nationalistic lines.

The IFTU, itself a new and fragile structure, recognised immediately the danger but its hands were full with no legal rights to organize and no access to its monies and resources.

The IFTU was battling to build genuine independent and democratic unions, fighting to free its monies and to abolish Saddam’s anti-union diktats in favour of labour laws compliant with ILO standards.

And it struggled to build one united trade union movement that’s capable of halting the threat of sectarianism ever getting grip of Iraq’s nascent trade unions. The IFTU also campaigned to build unions capable of standing up for workers' and women's rights.

From late 2004 it initiated a quiet policy of contacting and speaking to all trade unions centres in Iraq including those in Iraqi Kurdistan. The purpose was simple: for the short term it was trying to find a common ground to work together on issue of common interests. In the long term it was trying to set the foundation for building a united , democratic and independent grassroots trade union structure that has no room for extremist ideas of any shape and form.

This quiet policy initially paid off and a unification meeting was set for September 2005 in Syria at the ICATU headquarters where I was one of four people who represented the IFTU.

The IFTU signed a merger statement with leaders of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), the old official federation and the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions (GFITU) which had split from the GFTU after the invasion of Iraq to form the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW).

The unity statement agreed that the GFIW should work to organize a national conference within three to six months to democratically elect a new leadership and adopt a new democratic internal constitution.

In 2008 two more Islamist federations joined the GFIW which now united five trade union centres. The IFTU's reasons for merger were genuine but unfortunately others had sinister motives. Some of these unions’ leaders who joined with the IFTU worked covertly with some dominant Islamist elements within the state to control the GFIW right from the beginning.

They wanted to divert the GFIW from its primary task of defending workers' rights and to make it a new instrument in the hands of some dominant parties.

Progressive Iraqi forces failed to make a legal and moral democratic stand in support of the Iraqi unions. Combined with extreme government pressure and interference by hardline forces this meant that the unions were finally over taken by the Iraqi state.

The state acted covertly in co-operation with their stooges in the GFIW leadership. The Ministry of Labour used state resources, including security forces, to secure total control of the GFIW at a meeting of its national general council on 18 January 2012. The GFIW website www.iraqitradeunions.org details these twists and turns.

My hope, as one who has spent much of my life in defending and building independent trade unionism, is that the GFIW can regain democratic ideals and values such as social justice, independence and above all serving workers rather than the interests of hardline political masters.

To be blunt, however, the struggle is now harder than before. Further sacrifices and hardship are needed as well as continuing support from the international labour movement. I have some hope that this can be done if the original spirit of the Arab Spring can be harnessed.


Hat tip : Labour Friends Of Iraq.