Capitalism’s Covid crisis shows socialism is vital

Socialist Party Scotland editorial statement – September 2020

Scotland is in deep recession. Despite a slight return to growth as lockdown was eased, GDP is 18% lower than February 2020. Overall, the Scottish economy is likely to end the year 10% smaller than it began it.

The threat of mass unemployment is looming as furlough and the self-employed support schemes are ended. With almost 1 million workers in Scotland recipients of these measures an explosion in joblessness from November seems inevitable.

A fighting socialist alternative to this looming catastrophe is urgent. A massive programme of government investment into a job creation programme is vital. As is the full payment of wages of those whose jobs are cut or whose workplaces are unsafe to return to.

Young people especially cannot be made to pay the price of the capitalist crisis. An immediate £12 an hour minimum wage and trade union rights are essential.

Socialists fight for the nationalisation of the major sectors of the economy, including those companies threatening mass sackings, under democratic workers control and management as the only route of this social and economic crisis.

mishandling

From the start of the pandemic, the Socialist has catalogued the mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis by the Westminster and Holyrood governments.

This has included the complete absence of testing and tracing for months, chronic shortages of PPE, the moving of patients into care homes untested leading to the spread of the virus and many deaths.

Both Scotland and the UK have some of the highest death rates in Europe. As lockdown has ended and with profits taking priority over workers lives, new spikes in infection rates are evident.

As of early September almost 2 million people in the west of Scotland can no longer visit friends or family in their homes. Across Scotland, further restrictions have been imposed.

Capitalist politicians, in this case Tory and SNP governments, are responsible for the virus resurging. Workplaces and schools have been opened without adequate health and safety measures and provision of PPE.

Testing and contract tracing, under resourced, is increasingly unable to cope. Unbelievably, teachers and education workers in Glasgow are now being blamed for catching the virus in schools.

A letter from the Executive Director of Education at Glasgow City council complained of a “ridiculous number of teachers and support staff” having tested positive for coronavirus and are being send home to self-isolate.”

Yet the trade unions warned that opening schools to all pupils would inevitably lead to an increase in infection.

fear and anger

It’s no surprise that there is widespread anger, fear and confusion at the unfolding situation, with workers lives and living standards on the line.

There is an increasing mistrust of the Westminster and Holyrood governments ability to end the threat of the pandemic.

Both the Tories and the SNP are also happy to deflect anger, often blaming young people or those who do not comply with the lockdown measures.

The Tory health minister, Matt Hancock, even criticised people for asking to be tested. The reality is only the workers’ movement has the social weight and authority to act to defend our class interests, including over workplace safety.

On a local level in Scotland there have been significant examples of the trade union movement showing decisive leadership. Postal and cleansing workers walking out successfully against unsafe working practices are just two examples.

We have also seen the grassroots protests by NHS workers demanding a 15% pay increase.

It’s vital that the NHS trade unions come together in a campaign on national action, including balloting for strikes, to win a decent pay increase.

These examples stand in contrast to the incapacity of the majority of the national trade union leaders who have taken an approach of seeking partnership with governments and the employers during the crisis.

Even making false promises that they can secure jobs and wage rises in a “recovery” by taking this approach. Enormous pressure and anger from below in the trade unions must be channeled to build combative leaderships prepared to fight for members.

The scale of the crisis of capitalism, and its inherent need to preserve profits and its existence at all costs, means the workers’ movement must go on the offensive. By breaking with any idea of partnership and mobilising the increasing anger of workers must be the task of the trade union movement.

A “council of war” of the STUC and TUC as well as shop stewards and union reps in every area must prepare to step up the fight for trade union control of health and safety measures in all workplaces.

The NHS needs massive public investment to deal with the enormous backlog of waiting lists, including for cancer treatments, as well as the threat of a potential second and third wave of the virus.

The care sector, where the pandemic has been most deadly, must be immediately and fully nationalised under democratic workers control. Compensation to private care owners must minimal and based on proven need and audited by trade union representatives.

The trade unions must fight for furlough payments to be extended while workplaces are unsafe with workers receiving 100% pay. The level of sick pay should be the same as wages and all benefits need to meet the cost of living.

A national campaign of industrial action should be planned against all job losses in the private and public sectors, demanding pay rises that reflect the loss of income of ten years of austerity and the pandemic.

independence

The SNP has emerged over the past decade as the largest electoral force in Scotland – including among the working class and young people. As we have consistently explained this transformation reflects, in a distorted way, the enormous political vacuum that exists for a new workers’ party following Labour’s transformation into a pro-capitalist entity under the Blairites.

The defeat of Corbynism at a UK level has also reinforced that trend. Current opinion polls for the 2021 elections, for example, indicate the SNP are likely to poll over 50% of the vote.

The SNP now hold all the seats in previously solid Labour working class areas, including in Glasgow and across the west of Scotland.

A pro-independence majority in May 2021, the SNP argue, will be another mandate for a second indyref. But both Sturgeon and the SNP leadership are massively underestimating the determination of the ruling class to block Scottish independence.

Mass working-class struggle and a revolutionary threat to the billionaire class can force concessions. Appeals by the SNP to the Tories to listen to reason and accept the “democratic will of the people” will fail. 

Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence, therefore, that the only route to independence is a legally agreed referendum is an exercise in delusion. This is not 2014. Then, David Cameron and Tories were confident they would comfortably win a referendum and in the process end for decades demands for separation.

They were rocked by an insurgent mood among the working class in favour of independence.

Not for nothing did one commentator, Gideon Rachman, writing in the FT the day after the indyref describe a “near-death experience” for the UK. 

There is no possibility of British capitalism revisiting that strategy. Not with latest opinion polls indicating support for independence at consistently over 50%.

The only way to win democratic rights and self-determination is to build a campaign, rooted in the working class and the trade unions that confronts the opposition and the capitalist interests that lie behind them.

To be able to mobilise such a movement requires socialist and anti-austerity policies at its core.

wealth hoarders

Hundreds of billions is being hoarded by the bosses and super rich. Socialists call for a windfall tax but also a programme of socialist nationalisation taking over the top 150 banks, industries and corporations under workers management and control.

Ultimately this crisis has also exposed the colossal vacuum of political representation for working class people.

Labour under Sir Keir Starmer and the SNP are ineffective at resisting the attacks of the Tories and protecting working-class people from the ravages of the virus and the crisis.

What is certain is that a new mass party based on the trade unions and organised working class is needed.

Socialist Party Scotland is fighting to build a socialist, pro-trade union challenge in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections through the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

Capitalism is failing. A fighting socialist alternative can win mass support in the months and years ahead. Join us in the struggle.