Activist: Number 29, December 2011

Paper of Socialist Party members in Usdaw

Tesco workers blockade store

With industrial battles breaking out all over the world, workers are having to resort to militant methods of struggle. These Tesco workers raised a banner declaring 'We want to protect our rights. Return our blood and sweat money.' Shoppers were prevented from entering the store. Of course, these battles were not led by John Hannett defending the terms and conditions of our members. These were workers in east China afraid Tesco would skip town without paying them the money owed. This appears to happen a great deal in China. Tesco deny this and commented that they will pay one months extra salary to every worker who is made unemployed. The workers asked for one month for every year employed. Let's hope they win their battle.

Unilever strike
On Friday 9th December, workers at FTSE 100 giant, Unilever, took strike action for the first time in their history against attacks on pensions. Bosses at Unilever wants to slash thousands of from workers pensions. According to strikers in Leeds, the pension scheme is slightly in deficit, but Unilever could easily use its 6bn in profits to plug the gap. The strike at Unilever comes the week after 3m public sector workers from 28 trade unions took strike action in defence of their pensions. The strike at Unilever blows apart the Con-Dems government lie that cutting public sector pensions will somehow help private sector workers. The millionaire coalition and millionaire bosses are trying to drive down the living standards of all workers, public and private. Usdaw, Unite and GMB members at Unilever were striking together for 24 hours from 7am to 7am at 12 factories nationally. In Leeds, there were six pickets at each entrance, and tens more workers protesting on the street opposite. James, an Usdaw member, whose wife is a senior teaching assistant and as a Unison member had been on strike last Wednesday, said he was set to lose 6,500 off his pension. I did a rough calculation; I could lose silly amounts over the course of my retirement, 300,000. James said over the last 7 years working for Unilever he had seen his benefits go down, and he made it clear that if he were to accept yet another change to his pension, the bosses would just be coming back for more. One Usdaw steward explained that in 2008, Unilever promised to keep the final salary pension scheme, if we increased contributions. Now Unilever want to change this and put everyone on defined contributions, but even this

is only guaranteed for 2 years. Paul Poleman, top dog at Unilever, took home 1m in shares this month. Poleman says its not about the money; its about making his company competitive. Unilever workers on strike in Leeds, understood that bosses werent going to back down after just 1 day of strike action, and were willing to take further action until they won. When Unilever workers do strike again they should coordinate their strike with the public sector to ensure it has the maximum effect, and to build unity between public and private sector workers in defence of pensions, and against all the cuts. Ian Pattison, Leeds City Socialist Party, Unite member

Youth Unemployment - Jarrow March in Yorkshire

As one of the people who had been heavily engaged in organising the Jarrow march, it was really great to see it get so much public support and media coverage. What was also great was the response the march got from members of my branch. As well as me mentioning it, we had information forwarded onto us from the local trades council who were supporting the march when it came to Leeds. On the Friday evening a member of the branch attended the reception hosted by the local trades council for the marchers, and was positively enthused by the numbers of young people actively trying to make a difference. At the following branch meeting several members commented on looking out for me on the TV coverage of the march through the region. Its just a pity USDAW doesn't formally support initiatives like this as it could help make many more young people aware of trades unions and USDAW specifically as a union that organises the retail trade where many young people now work. Iain, Leeds

No sell-out on pensions! Fight until we win!

Name the day for the next co-ordinated strike in January Today the TUCs Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) met for the first time since the magnificent 30 November public sector strike. Disgracefully, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, argued that all of the trade unions should sign up to the governments latest heads of agreement on pensions, which would then allow Francis Maude to announce before Christmas that the strike has been settled. This was met with outrage by many of the public sector trade unions present. Not one of the central demands of public sector workers has been met. All public sector workers are still being told to work longer, pay more and get less. The teaching unions NUT and NASUWT reported that they had been offered no serious concessions by the government, as did the civil servants union PCS, the Fire Brigades Union and representatives of workers in the NHS. In

local government the only concession is to delay the attacks on pensions until 2014, provided that local government unions promise to accept the pain without a fight when it comes. Yet Dave Prentis - general secretary for UNISON the biggest union in health and local government argued for accepting this rotten deal. Hundreds of thousands of UNISON members who struck on 30 November will not agree. November 30 showed the potential power of the working class in Britain. We can force this weak divided government to retreat, but only if the action is stepped up. The leadership of the TUC and UNISON were only forced to support N30 because of the pressure of rank and file trade unionists now we need to do the same again. At the PSLG PCS demanded that the meeting name the day for the next day of national co-ordinated strike action. In Scotland UNISON delegates have already unanimously proposed 25 January as the day of the next strike. NSSN supporters need to pile on the pressure for the date of the next strike to be set before Christmas, to take place in January. We immediately need to: 1.Flood the TUC and UNISON leaderships with letters, resolutions and petitions of protest demanding that they do not sell-out the pensions struggle and immediately set the date for a strike in January in coordination with the other public sector unions. 2.Members of all other public sector unions to send letters, resolutions and petitions to their National Executives demanding that they set the date for a strike in January in co-ordination with the other unions. 3.Organise a mass lobby the next meeting of the TUC, which is taking place in early January.

The growing gap - life expectancy

As with the expanding income gap between rich and poor, recent figures show that the life expectancy gap is increasing as well. For a boy from a poor family in the north of England and Scotland compared with someone from the wealthier parts of London the life expectancy gap has widened by one year and is now 13.3 years. For a a girl it has increased by 1.7 years to 11.8 years. The poor are paying for the economic crisis with their lives.

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