The Class Struggle — Onward to the Political Phase

While the government point to changing demographics – an increasingly ageing population – as a key reason for the pensions problem, there are several other factors impelling capitalists to try and cut back on their pension costs and liabilities. One is the problem of a fallen stock exchange. Public sector workers did not cause the current economic crisis but they are expected to make up for it.

The media is desperate to discredit them. The anti-public sector, anti-union campaign is vociferous once again. "Gold-plated pensions" is one battle-cry. That's the media’s job – to wage a propaganda war to make sure everyone’s ‘on-side’ and ‘on-side’ means (as if it’s not obvious enough ) on the side of the government and the bosses. Every strike of any size has been put down to the nefarious influence of "militants". But workers do not go to the lengths of striking just to please Machiavellian union bosses. The fact remains though that the unions remain strong enough within the state sector to resist attacks to a certain extent. The unions today may remain weak: membership but the membership is concentrated in the public sector (57 percent of public-sector workers are unionised compared with just 15 percent in the private).This means our unions can still ‘cause chaos’ to use the emotionally loaded language of the media. Strikers are never popular with government so they are libelled as selfish disrupters of the communal well-being. However, there would be no point in a strike which was not disruptive in some way. It is not illegal to go on strike. But the state only made strikes legal after the workers had demonstrated that the law wasn’t going to stop them striking. In other words, the state’s recognition of the “right” to strike was the state accepting that the workers had already acquired the “might” to strike. Anti-union laws do not stop workers taking action. It is, and always has been, the determination and consciousness of workers that guides their disputes. No law could stop people refusing to work. Trade unions are tools for the workers to engage in the labour market. Their memberships are of many different political persuasions, workers banded together for the purpose of protecting their interests.

The strike is the force behind all trade union organisation. A trade union is a combination for the purpose of making it possible to collectively withhold labour-power. If there is to be a battle against the government within capitalism for a better standard of living the wages front is the arena to fight it and where intervention by the organised working class can pay dividends. And this is the arena where the workers, democratically organised, are most likely to come into conflict with the government. Cameron and his government have been expecting us to accept whatever’s coming to us. We must try to prove them wrong. When trade unions take action on sound lines the Socialist Party heeds its class allegiance and gives them support. From a socialist perspective, it is good to see the working class fighting back. The gains made by wage and salary workers on pay, pensions and other related issues have not, after all, been granted by benevolent governments or employers – they have been fought for. If those gains are to be defended, democratic and unified action by workers is necessary. It is the business of the capitalists to set one section of the working class against another in order to prevent them perceiving who are their real enemies. For workers, the struggle is not only over the size of pensions, but over identity, security and, ultimately, working conditions too. If the government and employers win on pensions they will try it on something else.

Nevertheless, important as activity of this sort is today it still does not get to the crux of the question. The Socialist Party urges all workers to consider the position. They have to strike because they are slaves to the capitalist class. Workers, besides making the greatest possible use of the trade union, must also come to recognise that even at their best the unions cannot bring permanent security or end poverty. These aims cannot be gained within the limits of capitalist society. Workers need to remember one thing – while such action is necessary within capitalism, there can be no lasting solution to the problems the market economy creates within the market system itself. It is the task of socialists to help those struggling within the system to see the bigger picture and recognise that lasting solutions to the problems faced by workers everywhere can only lie in removing the market economy. The highest expression of the class struggle is the political organisation to gain the state machinery for the single object of transferring the means of living from the capitalist class to where it belongs, in the hands of society as a whole, i. e., to change the basic organisation of society to one of production for use. Austerity, in a world of potential plenty, is always the lot of the working class under capitalism. This is why, in addition to trade unionism, a socialist political party is needed. To achieve socialism there must be a breaking down of the rivalries and antagonisms between all workers in all industries and a unification, on the political field, on the basis of a clear understanding and awareness of their interests. Unions cannot make revolutions, only the working class themselves can through clear, determined political action.

Them and Us

Pension pots of FTSE 100 directors reveals the widening gulf between boards and their workers. Directors in Britain's top 100 companies have accumulated final salary retirement pots worth £2.8m on average which could buy an employee a pension annuity worth more than £170,000 a year , Half of FTSE 100 directors still in final salary schemes that typically pay two-thirds of final salary as a retirement income. Directors earn full pension in 20 years, employees take 40 years.
Steve Tatton, editor of Incomes Data Services Executive Compensation Review explained, "While pension provision for board directors have remained generous, much of the workforce over the last few years have been going through a process of having the value of the payments into their scheme reduced."

MPs an work for just 15 years and build up a £24,000 pension, based on their salary of £65,738. A worker in the private sector would have to build up a pension pot of £700,000 over a lifetime to get the same income at age 65. MPs says they want reform but none says when. The Cabinet Office says it's a matter for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the body created to police MPs pay amid the expenses row. The authority says it can do nothing until the leader of the Commons commences powers legislated for before the election but not yet "switched on". Even once it gets the powers, IPSA will be in no rush, saying it will take time to collate evidence and consult.

The government stopped using the retail prices index (RPI) to uprate public sector pensions each year. They decided to start using the more slowly rising consumer prices index (CPI) instead. CPI is not an appropriate index for inflation because it doesn't include housing costs. If those rates of inflation, with that 1.5% difference, were replicated every year for the next 20 years, then someone now receiving a pension of £10,000 would eventually get an annual pension of £18,415 with CPI instead of £24,583 with RPI. That is 25% less - a cash difference of £6,168 a year. BT revealed that the change has knocked £4.3bn off its deficit. At the Royal Mail, the change reduced its pension-scheme deficit by £3.5bn.

See Also no pension problem just a profits problem
and work til you drop