Italian unions mobilize against austerity plan

International Metalworkers' Federation
August 31 2011

The Italian metalworkers’ unions, FIOM, FIM and UILM mobilize against the government’s plans for cuts and retrenchments, that disproportionally hit workers and pensioners, while protecting the wealthy, overpaid politicians and high-ranking state officials. Sit-ins, rallies and a 8 hour general strike are planned for September 1-6.


ITALY: FIM and UILM, and their national centres CISL and UIL, demand the immediate withdrawal of the austerity measures concerning pensions, and will demonstrate in front of the Senate on September 1 against "inadequate measures that hit the usual victims instead of those who created the national debt." They urge the government to withdraw the pension measures, and to concentrate on combating tax evasion, on big fortunes and on the costs of the political system in order to remedy the lack of resources.

FIOM prepares a series of initiatives on September 5 and 6 against the government's plans, the attack on workers and on workers' rights. The national centre CGIL calls for an 8 hour national general strike on September 6 in all sectors to demand changes in the government's austerity plan of August 12. Rallies and demonstrations will be organized in all Italian counties.

The government's austerity plan is considered unequal and ineffective to counter the social, economic and financial crisis affecting Italy.

"The government's measures puts burdens only on workers' and pensioners' shoulders, cutting public sector wages, jobs and services, reducing public funds for municipalities and local authorities and imposing solidarity taxes only on incomes and revenues, preserving private property and wealth."

The government also interferes in industrial relations and divides the social partners, CGIL says, distorting the contents of the agreement on the representativeness recently reached between the main social partners. Without any economic and financial justification, it introduces rules to reduce individuals' protection against indiscriminate firings.

No provision to support growth and employment, particularly for young people, is included in the government package, says CGIL.

Instead of the government's austerity plan, the CGIL proposes several measures designed to boost growth and revenues, such as:

• a structural plan to fight tax evasion, amounting to 130 billion euro per year
• an extraordinary tax on large real estates, generating 12 billion euro
• an ordinary tax on wealth over 800,000 euro, generating income of 15 billion euro
• a reduction of the costs of the political system, politicians and public administrators, a wage ceiling for high-ranking state officials and reductions at public local companies that do not produce services - generating cost savings of up to 8.5 billion euro
• a "Growth and innovation fund" to invest in the insertion of young people in the labour market
• support for incomes, by reducing taxation for workers and pensioners.

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Revolutions arrive too late or too early, but always when they’re not expected

Raul Camargo, Joseba Fernández, Miguel Urban Crespo
International Viewpoint
May 2011

This article will offer some explanations of the success of the movement (and its continuation), the special relevance of casualisation and young people, and the significance of this event-movement as a destabilizing factor in the mobilization against the crisis.


We have no fear
15 May has opened a breach. Of that there is no question. It is a movement that opens new paths and that presupposes, bluntly, an inflection point in the social response to the crisis in Spain. Whoever in the Left can find no reason for celebration and joy, beyond the current uncertainty, has a serious problem. They have been, then, in an offside position.

Antecedents: the breeding ground, the dereliction of duties of some and the impotence of the “alternative”
Expanding once more about the factors that explain the profound deterioration in social, economic, environmental and all of political life in Spain does not make much sense. It’s well known how the capitalist economic crisis smashed into Spain’s growth model and how that has affected millions of people. The model of exit from the crisis has also tailed the elites — a dynamic “class struggle from above” that, dictated by the EU and IMF, has left a trail of victims and created a scene of crushing victory for banks, big capitalists and certain types of speculators.

The balance that has emerged from the break in the Spanish economy is an appalling one. Financialization of the middle classes, the “wealth effect” and the stupefying dream of an “ownership society” and “social ladder” had worked perfectly, as illusory mechanisms for the peaceful evolution of this country’s developmental model. However, the bursting of the various bubbles that gripped the Spanish economy has blown up this scheme of fictitious capitalism. A society partly euphoric at the credo of growth has been transformed into a society without social handles to grip. And, without venturing into psychological holes, it has gone from a citizenship based on networks of trust to a society suspicious of the social and political institutions on which the regime sits.

But this change was rapid. The knockout punch, suffered by the majority of the working classes, was administered and digested through different phases and moments. No one goes from euphoria to fear — and from there to outrage and mobilization — in a short and mechanical sequence. But, clearly, this was the “breeding ground” that would produce the “outbreak” the 15-M movement was constructing, little by little, and covertly. And, in recent months, it was being constructed outside of the channels and structures that were expected to star in any comprehensive opposition to the social emergency and coup being carried out against the lived economy and political sovereignty.

However, a previous breach had opened a few months earlier. It was 29-S [the general strike on 29 September 2010]. That day (and in the weeks of preparation beforehand) the real possibility of extending the framework of resistance and popular responses (from the world of work, and well beyond) was reaffirmed in the call for and fallout of the General Strike. For the social Left and anti-capitalist politics the conditions of continuity of the strike were a given: Neighbourhood platforms, new socialised work initiatives, collective learning for new activists, etc.

The winding up of the unions’ oppositional, conflictual approach and the major unions’ decision to commit to social dialogue and agreement presumed an inability to take advantage of a real political opportunity to intervene from these actors, an inability to follow a different model — the accumulation of forces in a social response to crisis. The damage caused by the pact over pensions to the morale of many activists, and the real (and deserved) delegitimation that the union leaders have suffered as a result explains why they cannot be perceived, at this time, as effective instruments through which the “general malaise” can be interpreted and channelled.

Neither, on balance, has what we call (broadly and diffusely) the alternative and anti-capitalist Left been much better. Obviously it hasn’t played a role of legitimiser or stooge of the farce of social peace. But, yes, at least in its inability to express what could be the alternative in the street. While “resistance-ism” [resistencialismo] has been marked, organizational incapacities, narrow-mindedness, a real disconnection from those who are the core activists or, simply, the use of repertoires of action attractive and appealing for a different public face have led to demonstrations that, while necessary and relatively successful, could not initiate a cycle of mobilisation. Thus, the alternative unions, the more radical and coherent social movements and the radical political Left haven’t been able to break from the circle in which they have moved. While it is true that the Left has expanded in recent months, its role as a catalyst for the battle in the streets has always had a ceiling on it. But it is also true that small initiatives that have been punctuating recent months and years have generated part of the discourse that today is drawing in more sectors of the now-mobilized.

Imitation effect and resistance in the world of the dispossessed
This lack of practical references, symbolic and identity-bound, has held back the possibility of social responses in recent months. Knocking at our door have been other people’s experiences and new forms of self-organisation, in the form of riots, rebellions and revolutions. It was the Portuguese youth in their struggle against the IMF; Italian students against Berlusconi, job insecurity and cuts in education; the Greek trade unionists and youth against debt and EU blackmail; universities occupied and mobilized in the United Kingdom; France rebellious and insubordinate against the loss of social rights. And there have been, like an unexpected miracle, the uprisings for dignity and against tyranny in the Arab nations. The youth of Tunisia and Egypt and many other countries, their social and political organizations, have in recent years heroically resisted economic and political dictatorships and have shown that it is possible to reach heaven by direct struggle, even in the worst conditions. And somehow, it is we who were afraid!

Now the contagion effect that these riots and revolutions have had on the planet can’t be overestimated — how they are helping to transform many things and supposedly unchangeable realities in the management and governance of capitalism and imperialism on a global scale.

It is more difficult to demonstrate how they have specifically impacted on the awakening of instinctual rebellion in Spain. To not only two things: at the level of discourse and of forms of organization (management of social networks and symbolic force and real public space) they seem to have been an authentic inspiration.

Youth: an empty signifier yet full of content
Inigo Errejón said in a recent article in the mobilization of 7 April, “Youth Without Future” the concept of youth had been managed, successfully, as an “empty signifier” which encapsulated much of the social reality and collective imagination able to legitimise a protest of this type. It is an accurate analysis that, as we can see, is still working and will continue to do so.

Again, as already happened in the cycle of 1968 although in a completely different conditions [1], the youth, in various pockets of resistance, are acting as a true “tactical vanguard” in the context of an overall movement. We don’t enter an opinion here on such thorny issues as the concept of “generations” itself or on the available objective and subjective conditions for the mobilization of youth today. We simply assert its importance as an initiator of social antagonisms. And it is very uneven across demographic (Arab v European) and political (policies at movement level) contexts.

However, the focus of discourse and practice that hinges around insecurity is still being shown as an asset when it comes to uniting wills. The accumulation of experiences and counter-hegemonic discourse in universities in recent years is not negligible. The launch of an initiative with so much potential as “Youth Without Future” is just a sign of how sections of student activists have recognized that it is a discourse with the capacity to combine and refine mobilisation practices with a capacity for social impact.

In this sense, one can’t understand 15-M without 7 April. And it may mean a movement in the streets without the special intervention and ownership claims, discourses and practices of groups such as “Youth Without Future.” The alarming statistics of youth unemployment and insecurity were already signs of concern for sociologists linked to the PSOE and José Felix Tezanos or the IMF itself that has, more recently, dared to mention the risk of a “lost generation” in Spain.

The victories of 15-M and its risks: against the dictatorship of the markets, a rising movement
Something has changed since 15-M. In Madrid you can breath the atmosphere of mobilisation. Of what is (or should be) a demonstration: take to the streets, connect with ordinary people, expand the space as you can. Lose the fear. That we were told weeks before on posters of “Youth Without Future” [2]. And it was collectively shouted in the streets of Madrid (and in many other cities): “Without fear”. A fear that only we can shake off from the common, from the community. The great triumph of neoliberal politics has been its penetration into individual problems (in fear of work, of the future, of banks, of social disconnection). Only through collective channels, away from false individual solutions, can fear give way to other states of mind. And part of that fear has shaken us. That is the lesson that, collectively, we have lived. Surely, it has been the experience that many people do not participate in the rituals of protest and various expressions of the Left. And that is a gift to the radical Left: the possibility of politicization of new layers.

The keys to the success of the protest, and its continuation, are circulating, and are starting to be widely recognized. Despite some ambiguous and contradictory statements in the posters that had circulated in the days prior, it was perceived that there was a possibility of widening the social spectrum, to reach so-far demobilized sectors.

The tension between organization and spontaneity is shown, again, insoluble and false. There is no scope for strengthening the mobilization and grounding of organised experiences without a space for spontaneity; but there also isn’t room for it without prior organizational work that is also open to the unexpected.

In Madrid, the work and vision of “Youth Without Future” has allowed this platform to become the essential reference pole right now — for its dynamism, its fighting spirit and its ability to forge alliances. A public and media appearance, tolerated so far, but we fear a change of sign in the short term.

But 15-M has also not been a youth movement or a false signal of intergenerational conflict. It was the coming of what may be a new citizens’ movement — diverse, with apparent contradictions, but with even more possibilities. A movement, even one difficult to characterize, that was necessary and that breaks the inertia of defeat and pessimism that had overtaken the broader social Left.

And if it’s exciting for the number of people who have gathered (the largest demonstrations against crisis since the General Strike), it’s because most of the speeches are typical of words that the Left has been insistently repeating long before the outbreak of the crisis: the dictatorship of the markets and banks, against the social cuts, against this model of “democracy”. And that is a victory: socializing on the street are the flags of the anti-globalization movement, of students, of teachers and health workers in struggle over recent years, of honest and militant unionists.

One might say that the narrative is not finished, is not complete. Of course not. It lacks many things: analyses of environmental destruction, of the energy crisis, of the finitude of the planet. Also of patriarchy and the crisis of care. Or a story on immigration, immigration law or CIEs. That is what is missing. And many other things.

But it is a discourse and practice that must be kept company, which it is possible to construct along the road. The sectors that have built the resistance — from schools, workplaces, from the environmental movement, from feminism — should (and should be able to) fill in the content.

The 15-M movement and the grounded platforms that are emerging are a possibility that the Left and social movements can use to expand the audience for their ideas and practices. Because these movements, fortunately, don’t arise from agreements between apparatuses, they are not experiences for discussion among the most conscious. It is, finally, an ongoing experience for the movement. It is, paraphrasing Brecht in his polemic with the “identities”, an experience that has “legs” and not “roots”. These are the convergences that have a future: those who have “legs” (of marchers) and no “legs” (of a table).

The answer to this phenomenon of institutions and accommodation of the Left is symptomatic of the very success of the movement. [3] The stigmatization of the protests, the labels put on them, their underestimation and repression, are all palpable evidence of the concern they are causing. Some progressive intellectuals’ voices have asked us to be indignant and react. When we do, we should not offer alternatives to anti-systemic violence. It’s always the same story with those stuck in being “politically correct”.

The outlook for what comes after 15-M is uncertain. Of that there is no doubt. We know that more, however, will come on 22-M: more social cuts, less democracy.

We have always maintained that the “class struggle” is a long-winded battle. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets. Even when we know how to change the world. Neither 15-M nor what is happening now is a final lesson. But it has been a small tear in the normality of this democracy that gives a truncheon and anti-social orders under the spurious designs of what they call “market”.

Use this crack, shape spaces of resistance on the ground that don’t abandon the big problems, consolidate the spaces for the practice of resistance and of democracy that are the tasks that allowed us the cry of 15-M.

In mobilizing against the crisis and the fight against this world of looting, a small door has opened in this corner of the planet. Daniel Bensaid said that revolutions “arrive too late or too early, but always when they are not expected.” He also said that revolutions are a miracle, but we even have to prepare miracles. What has erupted in 15-M (if not before, in 7-A) is not a revolution, naturally. But it is a real opportunity to build a strong movement against the effects of the crisis. With intelligence and a good dose of virtue and fortune, you can start changing things.

And as we have seen and experienced in recent years such opportunities are not abundant.

We shouldn’t let it pass us by.

17 May 2011

This article was first translated and posted on this blog.

Raul Camargo is a leading member of Izquierda Anticapitalista in Madrid.

Joseba Fernández is a militant of Izquierda Anti-capitalista.

Miguel Urban is a leading member of Izquierda Anticapitalista in the Spanish state.

NOTES


[1] Such as expressed by Daniel Bensaid, this was a “generation” of young installed in the “getting better” while today we are facing the “getting worse”.

[2] “No home, no jobs, no pension, no fear.”

[3] Just read the statements of political leaders of the “standing” of Jose Blanco and Ángel Pérez on this.

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The European workers movement: dangers and challenges

Murray Smith
New Socialist
6 March 2011

With the onset of the world economic crisis, the European workers’ movement finds itself in a new phase, one that is replete with dangers and challenges. It is important to underline that we are in fact in a new situation and not just a continuation of the previous period.

There is nothing new about the fact that the European working class is under attack and on the defensive. There has been since the 1980s a systematic drive, increasingly coordinated by the European Union (EU), to impose neo-liberal policies in Europe. The aims have been to lower the cost of labour (wages, benefits, social programs), to remove limits on capital and to open up new sectors of the economy to private capital. So we have seen deregulation of the economy and of finance in particular, the imposition of "flexible" working practices, an increase in precarious work, privatizations and "reform" of the social state in the sense of undermining universal rights to pensions, unemployment benefits, free healthcare and other programs. Collective bargaining agreements are identified as a structural problem, the weakening of unions defined as an objective (Financial Times editorial, 2010-05-10). Such a weakening has occurred in some countries, but not all. The speed and scale of the attacks has varied across countries, but the direction is unmistakable. The cumulative effects have undermined, but not destroyed the welfare state that developed in large measure during the post-WWII economic boom.


Now ruling classes are stepping up the attacks. To use a military analogy, they are moving from a war of attrition to a war of movement, making a frontal assault on wages, working conditions, the public sector and social programs.

A Frontal Assault
There is no doubt that Europe’s ruling classes, acting through national governments and European institutions, backed by the IMF and the OECD, are quite consciously using the crisis and the deficits to push through a series of measures. They have the immediate problem of reducing deficits which are the product of governments bailing out the banks in 2008 and of the recession. This left several peripheral economies of the eurozone (Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal) with difficulty in borrowing money, with the danger of them defaulting on their debts, which would have serious effects on European banks. At the time of the Greek bail-out, Martin Wolf admitted in the Financial Times (2010-05-05), "It is overtly a rescue of Greece, but covertly a bail-out of banks". That is true not only of Greece. Banks and financial institutions from the big three of the EU — Britain, France and Germany — own more than half the Greek debt, and also more than half of Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian debt. All of that came to a total of over $2 trillion as of December 31, 2009 (figures from the Bank of International Settlements).

The price of bailouts to Greece and Ireland was the imposition of drastic austerity programs. In the spring of 2010 it was the Greek crisis that sounded the signal for a renewed offensive by EU governments. The conditions which were then imposed on the Greek people were draconian: wage reductions of 10 to 15 percent, in a country where the average monthly wage is 1200 euros; drastic reduction of the workforce in the public sector, replacing only one out of every five workers who retire; measures to facilitate sackings in the private sector; cuts in the health and education budget; further privatizations; raising the VAT, an across-the-board tax which hits the poorest hardest, from 19 to 23 percent; reduced pensions; raising the retirement age to 67. With minor variations, these measures have also been imposed on or adopted by Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

The object is in fact to use the crisis to impose harsher measures on the recalcitrant. This is not only to cut deficits and reassure the markets. It is also to accelerate the offensive that aims to make Europe more competitive in the new international context. This is fundamental. The social state, even weakened and under attack over the last thirty years, has lasted because Europe could afford it and because it helped pacify workers. Now the word is that the game’s over. The shift in the balance of economic power, the rise of new non-European economies, is underlining the fact that the standard of living and level of social protection that has characterized Western Europe since 1945 is no longer viable, from the point of view of the ruling class.

In its most drastic form at present, the offensive affects the so-called "peripheral" eurozone economies, and also several countries in Eastern Europe. But it is a Europe-wide assault. We are seeing austerity measures and a major attack on unions in Italy (centred on the FIAT car factories), and in France we saw last year’s counter-reform of pensions.

A case that stands out is Britain, where the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat ("ConDem") coalition that came to power in May 2010 has launched an offensive of breathtaking proportions. Taking the need to reduce the deficit as its theme, it has imposed sweeping cuts in public spending — direct government spending, but also the amount of money allocated by the central government to local authorities. This has led to those authorities closing down public services, cutting subsidies to volunteer groups and laying off tens of thousands of local government workers. Massive increases in student fees have provoked equally massive protests. VAT has gone up from 17 to 20 percent. Real wages today are no higher than they were in 2005 - in effect a six-year wage freeze, something not seen since the 1920s. In a parallel move the government has begun sweeping reforms of the health service which amount to the widespread privatization of services and will lead to large-scale job cuts.

Left Politics in Europe
Faced with this offensive, what has been the reaction of the European workers’ movement? In the first place, resistance has centred on the unions rather than on political parties. This is unsurprising when you look at the situation of the political Left. Without exception, the social democratic parties have rallied to the dominant neo-liberal discourse, enthusiastically or shamefacedly and with varying degrees of speed and internal conflict. This is true not only or even especially in theory, but above all in practice, in government. And they continue to do so today.

Three of the four "peripheral" countries — Greece, Spain, Portugal — are presided over by social democratic governments. If we look a little further back we can see the role played in government by social democracy in Germany between 1997 and 2005, as well as in the UK, France and elsewhere. There are some signs of re-positioning to the left in the French Socialist Party, the British Labour Party and the German SPD. However, these moves remain very timid and it is always necessary to look very critically at the left-wing rhetoric of social democratic parties in opposition — it invariably melts away under the pressure of office. Let us not forget that PASOK won the Greek elections in the autumn of 2009 with a left discourse which was in contrast not only with the preceding right-wing government but also with previous PASOK governments. Now, the PASOK government is doing as the EU and the IMF tell it to. Only three of its MPs refused to vote for the austerity programme last year (they abstained, and were promptly expelled from the PASOK parliamentary group). That does not necessarily exhaust the question of these parties. Under the pressure of the crisis and the scale of the attacks on the working class, cracks may appear. But this is likely to be a slow and uncertain process.

What about the forces to the left of social democracy? First of all there are the Communist parties. Some, while taking a position of opposition to neo-liberalism, operate in a sectarian and divisive way. This is above all the case of the Greek Communist Party. Then there are the Communist parties (in France and Spain, notably) which are part of coalitions/fronts with other forces of the radical Left. Thirdly, there are the traditional far left organizations which in some ways mirror the CPs, ranging from sectarianism to serious involvement in new coalitions and parties. Finally, there are new parties involving forces from different backgrounds (as in Portugal and Germany). In some countries the radical Left, more or less united or divided, has serious weight (Portugal, Germany, Greece and France in particular). But nowhere has it succeeded in supplanting social democracy as the main force on the left.

Unions
For the moment and for some time to come resistance will be centred on the trade unions, which are recognized as representative organizations by workers. The unions can mobilize. When they issue a call to action workers respond, especially if the unions act in a united way. The two big confederations in Greece, GSEE (private sector) and ADEDY (public), organized seven massive one-day general strikes in the course of 2010. The first one of 2011 took place on February 23. In France, in the movement against pension reform that began in the spring of 2010 and reached its high point in the autumn, the trade union confederations were the backbone of the movement. This was structured around a series of one-day national strikes and demonstrations which at their height put 3.5 million people in the street. In Portugal, the Communist Party-led CGTP confederation organized a demonstration of 300 000 people in Lisbon on May 29, 2010. Then on November 24, a general strike, called for the first time since 1988 by both the CGTP and the Socialist-led UGT, was massively supported, with 3 million strikers out of a workforce of 4.7 million. In Spain, a strike called on September 29 by the CCOO and UGT confederations was supported by 70 percent of workers.

But such one-day strikes are really the limit of what the big confederations will do. And governments know it. So it may be inconvenient, but they can stand it. The main union leaderships are conservative. They don’t seek confrontation, they want consultation and conciliation. Their problem is that there is less and less of this to be had, and fewer concessions on offer. So they are pushed into reacting to attacks. Furthermore, many unions are linked to social democracy, formally or informally. So when they are faced with a social democratic government, it is one thing to protest, quite another to engage in an all-out confrontation.

Even quite moderate unions are forced into confrontation by the capitalist offensive. But they are not prepared to fight to the finish, whereas in general the governments and the employers are, making only marginal concessions. Sometimes after protesting the unions can be co-opted into collaborating with the government, as happened catastrophically in January in Spain over pension reform. Nevertheless, to the extent that the main unions do mobilize, they help to open up a space for resistance.

There is a problem of the need for unions to adapt to the new situation, for new leaderships to emerge, at all levels, which are capable of determined resistance to the employers’ and government offensive. This implies a certain degree of political understanding of what is at stake. It also implies a democratization of unions which often function in an extremely bureaucratic way, in order to bring them under the control of the rank-and-file members. Such a reorientation and renewal of trade unionism can happen in two ways, by the appearance of new unions and by evolution within the existing confederations. When we look at the situation in each country there are positive signs. In France there are radical unions like Solidaires and the FSU, but there are also significant left currents within the main confederation, the CGT. In Italy the metalworkers’ federation, FIOM, part of the main CGIL confederation, is spearheading resistance, on a national level and in particular at FIAT. In Spain, in reaction to the sell-out over pensions, independent unions organized strikes and demonstrations at the end of January in Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, and there were manifestations of opposition in the CCOO and the UGT.

Far From Hopeless
There are other encouraging signs. One absolutely key factor is the role of young people. One of the most dynamic elements of the movement in France last autumn was the massive mobilization of school students. In Britain, the attacks of the ConDem government have given rise to what is shaping up to be the biggest movement of university and school students since the 1960s. There are also what can be described as "citizens’ mobilizations," for example the growing and increasingly militant movement against the cuts imposed by the ConDem government in Britain, involving trade unionists, neighbourhood action groups and young people.

In spite of the scale of the challenge, the situation of the workers’ movement in Europe is far from hopeless. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that workers are ready to mobilize if given a lead. Sometimes and in certain countries the offensive by employers and governments has been halted or slowed down. Opposition has been led by the unions, but it has involved students, young people and ad hoc fronts, sometimes including forces from social democracy.

But in spite of partial victories, the neo-liberal steamroller has continued to advance. The first task is to counter the offensive. Just saying no is not a sufficient response, but it is an essential starting point. The first line of defence is to mobilize against the measures. This is not in general very difficult. It is blindingly obvious that ordinary workers, particularly in the public sector which is everywhere under attack, young people and pensioners bear no responsibility for the economic crisis that has unfolded since 2007. The slogan, repeated in almost identical terms all over Europe, that "it’s not up to the workers to pay for the crisis, the bankers and financiers should pay" seems like simple common sense. The anger is there.

A Key Weakness
But there is an ongoing weakness of the workers’ movement, which gives the advantage to governments and the ruling class. The weakness is political. It lies first of all in the inadequate nature of the forces that are leading the struggle. But it also lies in the absence of a credible, visible political alternative to neo-liberalism. Such a political alternative is not a precondition for resisting attacks in the short term, perhaps even winning battles. But at a certain point the absence of a coherent alternative has a demobilizing effect.

One of the brakes on mobilization and resistance to the new offensive is the lack of a political alternative and indeed disillusion with politics, including and even especially with the traditional Left. This places a heavy responsibility on the radical Left. One of the strongest weapons of the ruling class for thirty years has been the claim that "there is no alternative." It has to be shown that there is one, that anti-capitalism can move from protest to developing a program that aims to win majority support. This problem predates the present crisis, but the crisis has made it a much more urgent question.

One response on the left to the tactic of repeated one-day general strikes is to argue for an ongoing general strike. That would certainly be the best way to win. The fact that it has not so far happened anywhere does not mean that it is impossible. But there are obstacles - not only the passivity of union leaderships but many hesitations and doubts within a working class that is much more atomized and insecure than it was thirty or forty years ago. And it does not have to be all or nothing. France last year showed that even short of a full-scale general strike the actions of the most radical sections of workers and the youth mobilization, combined with mass demonstrations, gave extra force to the movement, which came close to winning.

The other lesson to be learned from France is that every time a victory has been won, and indeed whenever there has been a serious battle, the battle of ideas, winning over public opinion, countering the government’s propaganda, has been crucial. On this front, political organizations of the radical Left as well as global justice groups like ATTAC have played a key role.

It is useful to cite some positive examples. If we look at the victorious campaign in France against the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005, it was won by a mass political campaign involving forces from both the political and the trade union wings of the workers’ movement, along with intellectuals, global justice activists and others. When the CPE (a government proposal for a weaker employment contract for young people) was defeated a few months later, it was defeated by what is best described as a social and political front, involving political parties and trade unions and spearheaded by youth and student organizations. And last year’s movement in France saw a similar combination of strikes, street demonstrations and a mass political campaign. These kinds of movements can win, and they are also the crucible in which a renewal of the workers’ movement can take place and new political forces can emerge.

Murray Smith, formerly international organiser for the Scottish Socialist Party, is a member of the anti-capitalist party Dei Lenk (the Left) in Luxemburg.

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The Irish crisis: A complete failure of neo-liberalism

Éric Toussaint
International Viewpoint
January 2011

For a decade, Ireland was heralded by the most ardent partisans of neo-liberal capitalism as a model to be imitated. The Celtic Tiger had a higher growth rate than the European average. Tax rate on companies had been reduced to 12.5% and the rate actually paid by TNCs that had set up business there was between 3 and 4% - a CEO’s dream! Ireland’s budget deficit was nil in 2007, as was its unemployment rate in 2008. In this earthly paradise, everybody seemed to benefit. Workers had jobs (though often highly precarious), their families were busy consuming, benefiting as they were from the prevailing abundance, and both local and foreign capitalists were enjoying inordinate returns.


In October 2008, a couple of days before the Belgian government bailed out the big “Belgian” banks Fortis and Dexia with taxpayers’ money, Bruno Colmant, head of the Brussels stock exchange and professor of economics, published an op-ed in Le Soir, the French-language daily newspaper of record, stating that Belgium imperatively had to follow the Irish example and further deregulate its financial system. According to Colmant, Belgium needed to change the legal and institutional framework so as to become a platform for international capital, just like Ireland. A few short weeks later the Celtic Tiger was crying mercy.

In Ireland, financial deregulation had triggered a boom in loans to households (household indebtedness had reached 190% of GDP on the eve of the crisis), particularly in real estate, a factor that helped boost the island’s economy (the building industry, financial activities, etc.). The banking sector had experienced exponential growth with the establishment of many foreign companies and the increase in Irish banks’ assets. Real estate and stock market bubbles started forming. The total amount of stockmarket capitalizations, bond issues, and bank assets was fourteen times bigger than the country’s GDP.

What could not possibly happen in such a fairytale world then happened: in September-October 2008 the card castle collapsed and the real estate and financial bubbles burst. Companies closed down or left the country, unemployment rose from 0% in 2008 to 14% in early 2010. The number of families unable to repay their creditors swiftly increased too. The whole Irish banking system teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and a panic-stricken government blindly guaranteed bank deposits for EU480 billion (that is, about three times an Irish GDP of 168 billion). It nationalized the Allied Irish Bank, the main source of financing for real estate loans, with a transfusion of EU48.5 billion (about 30% of GDP).

Exports slowed down. State revenues declined. The budget deficit rose from 14% of GDP in 2009 to 32% in 2010 (more than half of this due to the massive support given to the banks: 46 billion in equity and 31 billion in purchases of toxic assets).

At the end of 2010 the European bail-out plan with IMF participation amounted to EU85 billion in loans (including 22.5 billion from the IMF) and it is already clear that it will not be enough. In exchange, a radical cure was enforced upon the Celtic Tiger in the form of a drastic austerity plan that heavily affects households’ purchasing power, with a resultant decrease in consumption, in public expenditure on welfare, in civil servants’ salaries, in infrastructure investments (to facilitate debt repayment), and in tax revenues. On the social level, the principal measures of the austerity plan are nothing short of disastrous:

• suppression of 24,750 positions in the civil service (8% of the workforce, which would mean 350,000 positions in France);


• newly recruited employees will earn 10% less;
• reduction of social transfers resulting in lower family and unemployment allowances, a significant reduction in the health budget, a freeze on retirement pensions;


• a rise in taxes, to be borne mostly by the majority of the population, already a victim of the crisis: notably a VAT increase from 21% to 23% in 2014; creation of a real estate tax (affecting half of the households that were formerly tax-exempt);
• a EU1 reduction in the minimum hourly wage (from EU8.65 to 7.65, or 11% less).
  

The rates for loans to Ireland are very high: 5.7% for the IMF loan and 6.05% for “EU” loans. These loans will be used to repay banks and other financial bodies that buy bonds on the Irish debt, borrowing money from the European Central Bank at a rate of 1% - another windfall for private financiers. According to AFP, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn claimed that it would work, though of course “it would be difficult because it is hard for people who will have to make sacrifices for the sake of budget austerity”.

Both in the streets and in parliament, opposition has been very determined. The Dail, or lower house of parliament, voted the 85 billion rescue plan by a mere 81 to 75. Far from relinquishing its neo-liberal orientation, the IMF declared that among Ireland’s priorities it is counting on the adoption of reforms to do away with structural obstacles to business, so as to support competitiveness in the coming years. “Socialist” Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he was convinced that a new government after the elections in early 2011 would not change anything: “I’m confident that even if the opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, are criticizing the government and the programme [...], they understand the need to implement the programme.”

In short, the economic and financial liberalization aimed at attracting foreign investments and transnational financial companies has utterly failed. To add insult to the damage the population must bear as a result of such a policy, the IMF and the Irish government are persevering in the neo-liberal orientation of the past two decades and, under pressure from international finance, are subjecting the population to a structural adjustment programme similar to those imposed on Third World countries for the past three decades. Yet these decades should show what must not be done, and why it is high time to enforce a radically different logic that benefits people and not private money.

Translated by Christine Pagnoulle in collaboration with Judith Harris.

Eric Toussaint, president of CADTM Belgium (Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt, www.cadtm.org ), has a PhD in political science from the University of Liège (Belgium) and the University of Paris VIII (France). He is the author of Bank of the South. An Alternative to the IMF-World Bank, VAK, Mumbai, India, 2007; The World Bank, A Critical Primer, Pluto Press, Between The Lines, David Philip, London-Toronto-Cape Town 2008; Your Money or Your Life, The Tyranny of Global Finance, Haymarket, Chicago, 2005.

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Indonesian students demand: No cuts to education subsidies!

By Lisbeth Latham

On April 1, Indonesian students involved in the National Student League for Democracy (LMND) participated in a national mobilisation in Jakarta demanding that the government abandon plans to cut education subsidies to state universities. The policy is expected to result in tuition fee increases of around 300%.

The cuts are part of the broader austerity measures introduced by the Indonesian government on April 1, under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund and its Coordinating Group on Indonesia (CGI), in order to repay Indonesia's debts to international banks and corporations.


The slashing of subsidies on other basic items such as food, cooking oil and electricity will force workers, peasants and students to shoulder a greater share of the burden of the 1997-99 economic crisis.

The LMND sent a solidarity statement to the March 22 national day of action against education privatisation in Australia. It was read out at many of the rallies and received a good response.

It explained that due to rising living and education costs there has been a large drop in the number of students going on to attend high schools and universities. Of the 4.5 million high school students enrolled in 1996-97 only 2 million entered university studies in 2000. At the same time only around 5 million of the 7.5 million junior high school students enrolled in high school.

The LMND is demanding: no cuts to education subsidies, free education for the people, and for the arms bill to be cut so that more funds can be allocated to education.

ASIET member Kerryn Williams told Resistance magazine, “The fact that the Indonesian and Australian governments are pursuing the same policy of shifting education costs onto students and their families makes building solidarity between the campaigns of students here and there very important.”

From Green Left Weekly issue #400

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Student power: The Indonesian example

By Lisbeth Latham

Last year featured the largest protest movement in the history of Indonesia. These protests, which mobilised millions of people, ended the dictator Suharto's 32-year reign. They were primarily built by students.

How did students, a section of society which we are told has no economic or political power, bring about the downfall of the region's longest surviving dictator?

The protests developed around two key issues: the economic crisis and the lack of democracy in Indonesia. The collapse of Indonesia's currency, the rupiah, in early 1998 led to massive inflation and unemployment. The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) economic restructuring package required a reduction in government subsidies on rice, cooking oil and kerosene, causing shortages and hardship for millions.

Widespread dissatisfaction with Suharto was expressed in the lead-up to the March 10 meeting of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Indonesia's parliament. This reflected a growing recognition that the MPR was simply a “rubber stamp” for decisions already taken by Suharto and the ruling elite.

On March 10 in Yogyakarta, the day of Suharto's reappointment as president for a seventh five-year term, 10,000 students marched chanting, “Bring down prices, bring down Suharto!”.

Throughout 1998, the Suharto and B.J. Habibie regimes had attempted to intimidate and smash the student movement. At first attacking protests that attempted to leave campus, the regime became increasing desperate as the rallies began to grow and become more radical. They resorted to abducting, murdering and torturing student activists, and firing on protests.

These attacks only served to highlight the need for change and strengthened public awareness that students were suffering at the hands of the military because they were fighting for the people. The shooting of four students at Trisakti University on May 12 provoked outrage throughout Indonesia.

Between May 14 and 20, students took over the state-owned radio stations in Surabaya, Malang and Semarang, and the TV stations in Padang, West Sumatra. Occupations of regional parliament buildings occurred in a number of cities.

In Jakarta, students met after the shootings to discuss tactics. The more radical students proposed the mobilisation of workers, who were ready to join the students for the May 20 rallies. In a debate within the Jakarta-wide Forum Korta (Forkot), conservative students from the Tertiary Students' Student Senates argued that the involvement of non-students would lead to rioting.

The radical People's Democratic Party (PRD) argued that the urban poor would come out on the streets anyway and that students should build alliances with these forces and provide clear political direction. The more conservative students won the vote.

On May 20, approximately 500,000 people mobilised in Yogyakarta. In Jakarta, 150,000 occupied the grounds around the parliament. Forkot students established check points to physically prevent people without a student card from joining the protest.

Suharto's Resignation

In the face of mounting opposition, Suharto resigned from the presidency on the morning of May 21. Suharto's resignation and his replacement by Habibie had a demobilising effect on the movement. How could a movement which had succeeded in removing a dictator be mollified with such small concessions?

Suharto resigned not because of the immediate impact of the movement but because the regime feared the protests could escalate and the radicalisation deepen. Such a development could have resulted in the student movement in Jakarta following the lead of students in regional cities by forging links with peasants, the urban poor and workers. Suharto's resignation removed the focus of mass anger without requiring any real reforms or redistribution of the vast assets controlled by Suharto and his family.

The more radical students did attempt to restart the student mobilisations in late June to call for Habibie's resignation. These protests were met by counter-mobilisations by conservative students who argued it was necessary to give Habibie time to prove himself.

On November 9 to 13, a special session of the MPR, composed of the same individuals who had re-elected Suharto president in March, met to set the date for national elections and determine the composition of the parliament. On November 11 to 14, mass protests occurred in Jakarta against the session. Four demands united the protesters: reject the special session of the MPR; abolish the dual role of the armed forces (called dwifungsi); put Suharto on trial; and establish a provisional government.

There was some disagreement about what was meant by a “provisional government”. The Jakarta Student Senate Communication Forum demanded a presidium made up of figures in the political elite who have real mass support and a reputation of being free of corruption. Forkot demanded a people's committee comprising a broad range of figures and organisations active in the democracy movement.

The PRD, the Student and People's Committee for Democracy, Workers' Committee for Reformation Action (KOBAR) and Megawati Supporters' Committee campaigned for a democratic coalition government made up of progressive forces that have struggled consistently for democracy. They argued that it should be controlled by people's councils established from the district level.

The early protests mainly consisted of university students, although some urban poor were involved. The number of urban poor, however, grew to massive proportions in the later protests. The first day mobilised 5000 people, and the second day drew 10,000. On the third day, November 13, the numbers reached almost a million and virtually surrounded the parliament.

The protests were attacked by 30,000 troops and brigades of thugs (pan swakarsa) armed with sharpened bamboo. Eleven protesters were killed by the military. During the fighting, the urban poor defended the students, killing four members of the pan swakarsa. They placed 20,000 rupiah notes on the bodies to indicate they were paid vigilantes.

Organising Workers

Students involved in the PRD and its student organisation, Students in Solidarity for Democracy in Indonesia, have played an important role in organising workers in Indonesia. Through establishing the Indonesian Centre for Labour Struggle and involvement in KOBAR, the PRD has fought for workers' right to organise in trade unions.

The movement has undermined the government's propaganda that workers were being “used” by “communists”. It has become easier to involve workers in actions around political, as well as economic demands.

The national elections scheduled for June 7 will dominate Indonesian politics in 1999. Many students will act as election monitors. The PRD's participation will allow it to reach many people and will highlight that it is the only party to oppose the IMF's austerity package and to consistently call for an end to the military's involvement in politics.

The dramatic events in Indonesia show the power of student political protest. Students were able to detonate a mass movement for democracy and continue to lead the movement for fundamental change.

From Green Left Weekly #352

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Rage against the regime: Students fight for democracy in Indonesia

Lisbeth Latham

Last May mass demonstrations toppled one of the most brutal dictators in the world -- President Suharto of Indonesia. Having held power for over 32 years, with the full backing of most of the world's rich and powerful countries, Suharto was thought invincible by many.

Protests engulfed the whole of Indonesia, sweeping every campus, in every city and town. Students took to the streets, in defiance of military orders not to leave campus, to demand that Suharto resign.

The support for the student movement was grew daily. Scared by the massive demonstrations and the possibility of losing control, one by one Suharto's cronies began to call for his resignation. Finally, Suharto handed power to his vice president, B.J. Habibie.

Despite the change of the regime's face, not much else has changed. In the months since the fall of Suharto, the lot of most Indonesians has continued to worsen. The poor bear the brunt of the economic crisis, while the rich continue to hold power and protect their wealth.

The plummeting value of the rupiah, Indonesia's currency, and austerity programs enforced by the International Monetary Fund caused an additional 6 million Indonesians to slip below the poverty line in the space of four months.

The prices of life's necessities have skyrocketed -- medicines by 500%, rice by 300%. Many factories have closed, and millions have lost their jobs. The average income of Indonesians has dropped by at least 60% over the last six months.

The `bailouts'

Meanwhile, the rich in Indonesia have survived virtually unscathed. Suharto, worth around US$60 billion before the crisis, was estimated by the CIA to be the richest man in the world. While many of his Indonesian possessions will have depreciated, billions more are stashed away overseas.

Despite repeated popular calls for Suharto's wealth to be expropriated to lessen the effects of the economic crisis, the Habibie regime refuses to act. Instead, it blocks access to Suharto's residence with tanks and barricades.

The purpose of the “bailout” of Indonesia by the IMF and World Bank is to service the debts of Indonesian big business to international banks, not to ease the suffering or feed the Indonesian people.

The bailout is not a free handout. The Indonesian workers and peasants will have to pay back “their” debts. The Australian government, a long-time friend of the regime, has contributed $1 billion to this.

The struggle continues

In November, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), a body stacked with the military and appointees of Suharto, met to plan a new election. Recognising that this body would reinforce the status quo, hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets to prevent the meeting and to demand “total reform”.

The military opened fire, killing 13 and wounding hundreds more.

In response, the students, workers and peasants surged onto the streets in their millions and occupied military bases, government buildings, radio and TV stations and airports. They demanded an end to the military's role in politics, the establishment of a provisional government not connected to the old regime, new elections and the arrest and seizure of the assets of Suharto, Habibie and Wiranto (head of the armed forces).

Many of the activists who had been part of the campaign to topple Suharto had argued in the months after his resignation that the movement should give the new regime a chance.

The radical wing of the movement, led by the People's Democratic Party (PRD), argued that the overthrow of Suharto would not overcome the problems facing Indonesian society. It put forward demands to meet the needs of the people and called for the resignation of Habibie.

The PRD is also the first Indonesian group to support the East Timorese people's struggle for self-determination.

The PRD argues that, for the movement to succeed, it must involve all oppressed sections of the population. During the November events, based on the agitation of PRD members, thousands of the urban poor and peasants were drawn into the mobilisations. This demonstrated that students can reach and politicise broader layers of people with the right demands.

Building solidarity

Resistance has always opposed the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Resistance was one of the first organisations in Australia to build solidarity with the movement for democracy in Indonesia.

As a socialist organisation, Resistance opposes the imperialist policies of Australian governments, both Labor and Liberal. Canberra has supported the suppression of the rights of the East Timorese and Indonesians to protect the interests of Australian big business. Resistance supports and publicises the policies and activities of the radical PRD.

Resistance has called an international day of solidarity with the Indonesian student movement for May 22. The action coincides with the anniversary of the May 21 overthrow of Suharto.

Protests around the country, and the world, will mobilise support for the Indonesian and East Timorese movements against the Indonesian dictatorship. In Indonesia this year, more than 20 student activists have been shot dead and scores more wounded or detained. Thousands of East Timorese students have been killed or jailed since their country was invaded.

In both countries, students have vowed not to end their protests until the military are out of politics and full freedom is won.

The May 22 protests will demand: free the political prisoners; free the detained student activists; end all ties to the Indonesian military; and withdraw recognition of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.

Activist tour to Indonesia

Resistance is coordinating an activist tour of Indonesia, jointly sponsored by the Student and People's Committee for Democracy (KOMRAD) and the student group Students in Solidarity with Democracy in Indonesia (SMID).

The tour will be a chance for students from Australia and New Zealand to travel to Indonesia and stay with activists of the democracy movement. Meetings will be organised with students, East Timorese activists, high school students, women, trade unionists, the urban poor and gay and lesbian organisations.

It will be a chance to share experiences of struggle in Australia and learn from the movement in Indonesia.

Resistance is inviting interested students to join the tour. It will leave Australia in early April and last 10 days. The cost will be approximately $1200. Places are very limited. Phone Lisbeth Latham at (02) 9690 1230 or fill out the clip-off below.

From Green Left Weekly issue #346

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