Firemen’s strike

As we go to press the first 8 day strike by the firemen is underway. It is now clear that the government torpedoed the 16% agreement reached by the fire Brigades Union (FBU) and the employers. The government fears 16% for the firemen could set the precedent for other public sector workers to follow and this would be intolerable. Capitalism only makes profits by exploiting the workers and if workers are paid more profits will fall hence real pay increases are always intolerable. In the time-honoured tradition of the capitalist class, our Iron Chancellor has calculated that this deal would be a disaster for British capitalism. The government has therefore decided to take on and defeat the firemen. The Blair team thinks it can defeat the strike because some firemen will return to work in the run up to Christmas and as public sympathy for the firemen ebbs it will be possible to move against them with the law courts and the police. The government has inherited masses of anti-working class legislation, which it did not repeal because it wanted to use it for occasions just like this. On the one hand, the firemen face the representatives of British capitalism, in the shape of Blair & Co. whose job is to defeat all class struggle. On the other hand, the face their union, the FBU, which, like all unions, wishes to control the struggle and negotiate a speedy capitulation. Already the demand has dropped from 40% to 16%. Endless negations and postponement of the strikes has resulted in an offer of 4% which is exactly what was offered before all the talking started. No strike pay is being paid which will affect the strike now it has properly started. The union is terrified of a real struggle and desperate to settle. However, any settlement they negotiate will inevitably be a sell-out.

As we make clear in the text below “Spread the Strikes, Stop the War Drive” the only way the strike can be won is to spread it to the masses of other workers who are also suffering from low pay and whom the government wants to keep low paid. Tube and rail workers together with fire services at airports should be brought into the strike. A single demand for all groups should be put forward and the strike made indefinite until it this demand met. Short intermittent strikes only give Blair & Co. more time to organise and train scabs to break the strike.

Economic crisis

The fact that our rulers say that the economy cannot afford to pay firemen a wage that means that they don’t have to take second jobs, does indicate the depth of the economic crisis capitalism now faces. As always it is the workers who are being asked to pay for this through speedups, new working practices, flexibility etc., together with wage cuts. At present the severest effects of this crisis are being felt in the peripheral countries in areas such as South America, Africa and Asia. Argentina has just defaulted again on its debt payments to the IMF and is threatened with further punishment from its lenders. In Argentina workers are actually starving. The US is desperate to make an example of Argentina and has acted to restrict the contagion to that country alone. When the collapse started to spread to Uruguay and Brazil in September, fresh loans were immediately found for them. Uruguay was given $1 .5bn by the US itself while Brazil got $30bn from the IMF. The longer the crisis in the capitalist heartlands continues the more difficult it will be to prevent other peripheral countries sinking to the levels of Argentina. Then it will be the turn of the major capitalist powers. The US is desperate to solve the problems in its own economy and in an attempt to stimulate investment has reduced interest rates to 1.25% - a 45 year low.

Imperialist war and class struggle

It is the economic crisis which is behind the US military moves abroad. The US aims to secure its long term oil needs and to control the flow of oil to its rivals by reshaping the main oil producing regions, such as the Middle East and the Caspian Basin. This is dealt with in greater depth in the text in this edition “Countdown to war with Iraq”. It is significant that the capitalists are always ready to spend billions of pounds on imperialist wars at the same time as they brand workers pay demands as irresponsible. But there is a link between the two and it is not just the money. The capitalist class cannot fight their wars abroad while the class struggle rages at home. Looking at this the other way round, we can see that the only way to effectively oppose the imperialist war is to step up the class struggle. All other opposition is ultimately useless. Recently we have seen strikers branded as traitors, both the US and the UK. In the US striking dockers were told they were sabotaging Bush’s “war on terror” while UK firemen were “Stooges of Saddam.” In short they were opposing the interests of the capitalist class. We salute them for this. This is not only the only way to oppose capitalist wars, it is the only way to get rid of the system which causes these wars. The CWO is working to build a class-based opposition to imperialist war in the UK around the “No War But the Class War” movement. See text in this issue entitled “Communists against the war drive.”

Although class struggle can oppose war it cannot prevent it. Ultimately, only the overthrow of the system which causes imperialist war, namely capitalism, can do this. The class struggle needs to develop into class war, and class war to revolution. This is the only hope for mankind’s future.