UNITE THE RESISTANCE!
10 proposals for working class action

The working class didn't cause the credit crunch – we should not pay for the economic crisis
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Massive price rises for gas and petrol. A housing slump. A global banking crisis. Below inflation pay deals. A looming recession with job cuts and bankruptcies rising. And it's only just started.

As the economic crisis deepens, the Brown government and the big corporations are attacking working class living standards, with price rises for basics, rising repossessions and job insecurity.

But we didn't cause this crisis – the banks, corporations and big capital did. So why should we pay the price?

We don't have to. We can resist. The following 10 steps can turn the tables on Brown and the bosses.

We address them as a call to the whole working class movement – to the trade union leaders, to the rank and file union members, to the unorganised workers - to form a united front in action against the crisis. They set out what the working class should be demanding of this Labour government, how we could force the government to give in, and how we can begin to make the bosses, not the workers, pay the price for the crisis of their system.

1. Bust Brown's pay restraint – for a Sliding Scale of Wages against Inflation
We fight for strikes against all pay restraint and a united strike across the public sector to smash the 2 per cent pay limit. Indefinite strikes are the surest and the quickest way to win.

We should set up local committees of delegates from the public sector unions, drawing in the private sector workplaces and local communities, to link up the fight against real pay cuts.

Don't believe the official rigged inflation figures – we can monitor rising prices ourselves and draw up a Workers Cost of Living Index to track the real rate of inflation. On this basis, we demand the government introduce a Sliding Scale of Wages – a law guaranteeing wages rise 1 per cent for every 1 per cent prices rise.

2. No home repossessions – build a million new council houses
Rents should be frozen, mortgage interest should be scrapped and no homes should be repossessed. We should build community resistance to evictions.

We demand the government and councils seize empty properties and turn them over to the homeless, and that they build a million new council houses with a publicly employed labour force.

3. Defend every job – 35 hour week now
Instead of rising unemployment, we demand a maximum 35-hour week with no loss of pay – cut the hours, not the jobs – and a massive programme of public works to improve housing, transport, hospitals, schools and the environment.

Occupy workplaces marked for closure, call all-out strikes to stop sackings. Workers should have the right to inspect the accounts and know the business secrets of all companies making cuts to see where the money’s gone. All firms declaring redundancies should be nationalised – without compensation and under workers' control.

4. Nationalise the profiteers: the banks, the gas and electricity companies, the supermarkets
If Labour can nationalise failing Northern Rock, then it can nationalise those companies awash with money and intervene to safeguard workers’ interests.
Nationalise the gas and electric companies and the supermarkets, freeze household prices and confiscate the companies' vast profits. Nationalise the banks, finance houses and building societies and merge them into a state bank, with no compensation for the billionaires.

All PFI/PPP and rip-off outsourcing contracts should be ripped up - no compensation to the profiteers. Let’s put all public services under the control of the workers who provide them, and the workers who use them, not unelected bureaucrats

5. Tax the rich, not the poor
The government and councils will attempt to cut public services to pay for the bosses' credit crunch. Instead we should raise high taxes on big corporations, the super-rich and unearned wealth and close the legal loopholes for the millionaires.

Scrap income tax for the poorest workers, the unfair council tax and VAT on essential items. Green taxes should be paid by the corporate polluters not the working class.

6. Work or full pay: hands off our pensions, our sickness and incapacity benefits
The minimum wage should be linked to the European decency threshold – 2/3 of average pay, currently equivalent to £8.75 an hour.

State pensions should be linked to earnings, and all pensions set at the level of their final salary or the minimum wage, whichever is highest. Instead of gambling away our retirement on the stock market, the pension funds should be nationalised and merged into a single state guaranteed pension under the control of their members.

Hands off jobseekers allowance, sickness and incapacity benefit. Unemployed, sick and disabled people deserve work or full pay – their final salary or the minimum wage. Students over 16 should receive a living grant, set at the minimum wage, and university fees should be scrapped.

7. No more bloody wars for profit: jobs not bombs, troops out of Iraq
Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now – and no attack on Iran! All workers should support soldiers' right to refuse to follow orders in these illegal wars.

Not a penny nor a person should go to the armies of occupation and warmongering. We say, jobs not bombs – spend it on homes, schools and hospitals

8. Don't let them divide us: stop persecuting black and Asian youth
As unemployment grows and jobs and vital services shrink, the press and politicians will stir up racism. Build self-defence against racist attacks, and resist the persecution of Muslims.
Deny the fascist BNP any platform.

We fight for full citizenship rights for all migrants and refugees and call for resistance to immigration raids and deportations.

Unite and strike for equal pay for women and men by leveling wages up, not down. Instead of more restrictions on women’s right to choose, we call for free abortion on demand.

9. Scrap repressive laws: get up and fight for your rights
Down with the anti-union laws – for a legal right to strike, to picket, to take political and solidarity action.

The “War on Terror” has been used to strip away our civil liberties. We demand the abolition of all so-called 'anti-terror' laws, scrap detention without charge and restore all our rights.

Prove it or drop it: no trials without jury. No to ASBOs, no to stop and search and other arbitrary police powers used to harass youth.

10. For fighting unions and a new workers party
Unions to be under full control of workers not unaccountable officials, strikes to be under the control of strike committees, elected and recallable by the strikers, the leaders and workers’ MPs paid average wage of workers they represent. Grassroots activists need to organise to fight with union leaders where possible, without them where necessary, and to build a rank and file movement in the unions.

We also need to break the unions from the Labour Party, and use our political funds to create a new workers' party. A democratic conference should be convened to decide on the programme of the party, which could then stand candidates in next election, to campaign in the workplaces and the streets, and link up with working class parties and movements in other countries to coordinate international action.

Demand our leaders break with the bosses – let’s organise as a class against their crisis!

What can I do?
Take up the 10 Demands for Action
Circulate them to your workmates
Raise them in your union branch
Sign up to them at [INT]www.workerspower.com[/INT]
Call us if you want get active. Ring 020–7708 0224