Portugal: municipal elections A left which is ready to struggle!
The municipal elections on December Three local parliamentarians were elec14th will be the first test for the Socialist Party (PS) government of António Guterres, writes Luís Branco
The PS will certainly maintain its control of the major cities. Especially since the main right-wing party, the PSD which governed the country from 198595, is weak, and is presenting minor figures as candidates. Rather than win, their aim seems to be to do as much damage as possible to the PS government's image.
In the run-up to the election, the PS, PSD and the right-wing PP, and in some regions the Communists (PCP) have been trading candidates for the post of Parliamentary Chairperson (Mayor). The ideological indifference of the main candidates has led the media to label the conflict as a "pre-electoral dual" between regional power-brokers.
The main candidates are certainly avoiding the crucial social issues, and any debate on the role of the private automobile in urbanisation, the construction of further concrete monstrosities labelled as social housing, or the ongoing real-estate speculation as Lisbon prepares for the 1998 Universal Exhi-
All three mainstream parties, and the Communists (PCP), are concentrating their campaigns on their past achievements, and on promises of roads and other infrastructure protects that they promise to build within the four-year mandate at stake.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) is presenting 18 lists of candidates for Mayors and for the municipal executive and 14 lists for the local parliaments. Most of these 720 candidates are concentrated in Lisbon and Porto,
In 1993 the party presented lists of candidates in some 15 municipalities. 4 International Viewpoint #295 ted in Lisbon as part of a wider left list, led by Jorge Sampaio (now the President of the Republic).
His replacement, João Soares, has reversed or suspended many of the left's plans for the capital city. His administration is also the subject of corruption scandles. Former CIA director Frank Carlucci, close friend of the Soares family, is currently developing a luxury apartment complex in Lisbon, for which he lacks all the necessary permits, except the personal support of João
The son of former President Mário Soares, João was a keen supporter of the anti-communist UNITA forces in Angola, a former colony of Portugal.
The PSR refused to endorse Soares's list and decided, in November 1996 to present an alternative list. It is contesting the Lisbon and Porto municipal elections in coalition with Política XXI, a slightly smaller formation, representing independent left and ex-PCP militants Fully conscious of the weight of tactical voting, the coalition is striving to elect some representatives of the alternative left, to oppose the clientelism and politics of exclusion which currently dominate municipal politics.
It is difficult to predict what will happen outside the major urban centres. The PSR is also running a strong campaign in Amarante, the small town which hosted the 1996 Fourth International youth camp, and presents lists of candidates in newly opened regions for the work of the party.
The media boycott, and the appeal for the vote for the major parties are making it a hard campaign. The PSR slogan is "The left which is ready to struggle" - for ideas, for alternative projects for urban life, for jobs, and for the fight against to make use of extensive investigation techniques and to collect comprehensive personal data, far beyond what is allowed in normal criminal investigations. The big question is what is going to happen to these data, in particular if the persons concerned are not convicted or even formally charged. Considering the strong presence of police from other EU member states in Amsterdam and the general European context, the question is particularly relevant. European co-operation in public order
Improving co-operation both in maintaining "public order and security" and in the fight against "organised crime" has been a constant priority on the agenda of both the Schengen countries and EU Justice and Home Affairs co-operation. The Schengen Information System (SIS) is mainly an instrument "to maintain public order and security, including State security" (Article 93, Schengen Implementing Agreement, SIA). SIA Article 99.3 authorises the creation of personal files for the purpose of "discreet surveillance" and "specific checks". People registered in the SIS according to this provision are not suspected of any specific offence but are regarded by the reporting national police or intelligence services as interesting from a public security point of view. They have no right to information about whether or not they are registered.
It is possible that Dutch authorities exchanged the personal data collected through these mass arrests (including photographs and fingerprints) with police and security authorities in other Schengen member states via the SIRENE-network, and the SIS system. If we assume that other member states decide to proceed the same way with personal data of "undesirable" political activists, the SIS/SIRENE structure will quickly develop into a powerful instrument for the observation of the movements and behaviour of people innocent according to the law, for the purposes of political policing.
business will seize new possibilities, ning everyone. [CA/JD*
There is more. Less than a month before the Amsterdam police operation, the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council adopted a proposal (from the Dutch presidency) for "joint action". means co-operation in connection with events, such as "sporting competitions, music concerts, demonstrations and road
, attracting many people from
The Schengen Police and Security Working Group's draft handbook on police co-operation in the field of public order and security (SCH/1 (97) 36 rev 3, 15.5.97) is more specific. It expressly states that co-operation can also relate to the movements and activities of "irrespective of their size" , which "may pose a threat to public order and security".
Information exchange is to be improved through the use of a standardised procedure. Questions in a "checklist" in the annex to the document relate to the estimated number of people participating in the event in question, the nature and composition of participating groups, their motives and intentions, their gathering places and times, their travel routes, their means of transport, etc. Furthermore the handbook provides the design of joint ad hoc "operational centres" to be set up in the member state hosting a particular event. This implies that at future EU Summits, police from other member states could officially be part of the police command structure in charge of maintaining public order and security, alongside the police of the hosting country. The "organised crime" pretext
In recent years the need to fight against "international organised crime" has been used as a pretext for gradually extending the powers of the police, introducing new types of offences and legitimising almost boundless gathering of personal data. The fight against organised crime" has been the main argument Justifying the creation of Europol and of a confusing mass of overlapping structures of police and security co-operation. The public was told that this legal and police re-armament was directed against criminal organisations of car thieves, immigrant smugglers, drug dealers, paedophiles and terrorists.
Few listened to the persistent warnings of civil liberties cırcles that such poorly defined terms as "criminal organisation" "organised crime" and "membership" in such an organisation opened wide the door data, to arbitrary detention and removal from an EU member state.
Recent Schengen and JHA documents
Ives to make membership in a crimit ganisation an offence under the
One implications are obvious. The es essive police action against the proteste at the Amsterdam Summit looks. more and more like an advance test-run of emerging European structures of police and justice cooperation. So much for the "area of freedom, security and justice" established by the Amsterdam Treaty? Source: A longer version of this article was published in 'Fortress Europe?' - Circular Letter #51. The author can be contacted at Tel/Fax: +46/23 26777, E-mail: For more information contact: The Coalition Toward a Different Europe PO Box 54, 1000 AB Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Tel: +31-20-4708833 Fax: +31-20-6763931 E-mail: andereu@knoware.nl or ander.europa@xs4all.nl
France's 35 hour week
French prime minister Leonel Jospin announced on Friday October 10, a new bill for the legal reduction of the working week without loss of salary. The president of the employers organisation CNPF resigned, a sign of employers' deep opposition to the new measures.
All the country's trade unions and associations of the unemployed have been calling for some kind of reduced working time. But while the main unemployed associations (AC!, APEIS, MNCP) are united in their demand for a 32 hour week tied to job creation, and without loss of purchasing power for wage-earners, there is no consensus between the three trade union confederations.
This is unfortunate, since only mobilisation by wage-earners and the unemployed will overcome the many obstacles in the path of a reduction in working hours with the creation of new jobs.
Europe's FBI in action * the un on Condon tel ar 20620 16, 05 + 3P. 20-6168967, E-mail: <ac@xs4all.nl> Documents on the the repression and subsequent protests are at: <http://www.xs4all.nl/~ac/euengzw/index.htm> such as the cancellation of a fixed working day, to avoid hiring new labour. This will also cause a deterioration in working conditions, because wage-earners will be forced to work according to the number of hours and length of time chosen by the employer.
Although the government has declared its intention to re-examine abuses arising from previous legislation encouraging part-time employment, nothing has been clarified in these new measures. Meanwhile, part-time work is increasingly imposed and wide spread, to the disadvantage of women in particular.
Jospin stated that 35 hours will be introduced without loss of salary, but would "be tied to a moderation of salaries." In other words, a wage freeze, and a lost of purchasing power. Combined with generous financial incentives for businesses introducing shorter
The legislative timetable given for working hours. to arbitrary infringements of the fundamental rights and liberties of innocent people.
The Amsterdam events are not likely to diffuse such concern. They show that in the EU, the mere expression of political dissent can indeed lead to you being treated as a presumed member of a criminal organisation, with all the ensuing consequences. Ranging from pro-active observation, computerised storage, processing and exchange of sensitive personal negotiations (2 years for business employing more than 10 people, 4 years for the rest) risks being used by employers to apply job flexibility and intensify the work routine, cutting out any positive effects of a reduction in the working week.
Jospin has also stated that negotiations should include "the organisation of work" and "changes in the working schedule." There is a great risk that
The bill on the 35 hour week will not be presented before the French Assembly before the beginning of 1998. By that time, wage-earners, associations and trade unionists should have time to build together a mass mobilisation equal
On a European level too, the stakes are high: the creation of a movement for the reduction in working hours concer-
United fight to challenge
New Labour policies
* Britain Despite enduring months of calculated insults from Tony Blair, Britain's trade union leaders delivered him the victories he wanted at Labour Party Conference, writes Pete Firmin. The rule changes associated with Blair's 'Party into Power' project now give the Labour leadership a free hand to muzzle any grassroots rebellion inside the party. "Flexibility" has become the watchword. Flexibility for the Labour leadership means dodging out of any positive commitment party activists were fighting for. Flexibility for working people means being cajoled into accepting part time and short term contracts on worse conditions. It means putting up with attacks on the welfare state and a political party that is long on rhetoric and short on delivery.
And yet, on May 1" this year working people voted Labour: for real change, for an end to the Tories - and an end to Tory policies. Exit polls in that general election clearly showed that a majority of Labour voters, supported radical policies. They voted for redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, an end to privatisation and defence of welfare provision. With the bosses
The first months of the Labour government have been an eye-opener. Blair and his cronies have been proud to proclaim that they are following the same strategy as the Tories. They have been gleeful that they are getting away with things that their Conservative predecessors could not. Even the apparent commitment to increased spending on health and education is just a massaging of existing funds that are totally inadequate to sustain services already cut to ribbons,
The catalogue of attacks is long. They have "liberated" the Bank of England from political control and thus raised interest rates. They have continued with Tory privatisation plans and further pushed the tottering plans for Private Finance Initiatives in the National Health Service and elsewhere.
Young people and students have been in the front line whether through the introduction of student fees, the "welfare to work" con trick, or Home Secretary Jack Straw's new "law and order" proposals.
Single parents lose their benefits and the unemployed are forced onto schemes as pointless as those introduced by the 6 International Viewpoint #295
Tories, but more attractively packaged. All this has gone hand in hand with a steadtast refusal to remove Tory laws such as those shackling the trade unions and making asylum seekers destitute policies Labour had opposed only weeks before coming into power.
Chancellor Gordon Brown's latest statement on European monetary conver-
— "not going in just yet but preparing the way" goes hand in hand with an attempt to gag any dissident EuroMPs.
The pattern is clear. The bosses' offensive is to continue, with New Labour proud to help the bosses prosecute it.
However while all this may seem evident to left activists, most of those who voted Labour on May 1" remain mesmerised. We have the paradox of Blair being promoted as the world's most popular leader, while government policies attack every aspiration of their supporters.
Another crucial layer of voters are beginning to wake up and see what is happening but lack the confidence to fight back. The long night of Tory rule has left trade union organisation desperately weakened and political campaigners Maximising popular resistance
Which leaves the difficult questions: How do you build a fightback against the bosses offensive? What sort of organisation is necessary?
It is clearly not enough to merely continue to beaver away inside the structure of the Labour Party - but neither is it possible to merely proclaim the existence of a new socialist party.
Neither can you just build an effective socialist organisation just by recruiting one by one. The biggest "revolutionary parties in Britain are feeble shadows of what we need. In themselves, even those parties with several thousand members are
We have to relate to the mood that exists for new realignment. We need to build a united left - inside and outside the Labour Party. This must be based on the practical demands working people are putting forward and real attempting to realise them.
Ritual denunciations are meaningless - practical work is the only way to expose Blairism for what it is. Out of that practical work can arise both the unity of the left, and the means of reaching out to new forces.
Drawing people into action on straightforward demands, and trying to force the existing leadership of the labour movement to defend the interests of their members, can mobilise the forces neces-
THE DYED SOCIALIST APPEASER I BELIEVE
WELCON
sary to change society. Even small numbers can be effective - but only by promoting such unity in action.
On this basis it will be possible to build an organisation that can lead a fight against the bosses offensive and pose a threat to the easy ride currently being enjoyed by the New Labour government.
The mood for change needs to be harnessed. We must set clear goals - in the trade unions, inside the labour party, and on the streets. We know the issues, the basic campaigns already exist. The united work must start now. Positive examples
No clearer example exists than what was achieved this spring with the Euromarch. Broad coalitions were developed both across Europe and in Britain which mobilised thousands of workers and built on the actions of millions against the effects of the Maastricht Treaty.
The Euromarch played a part in changing the policy of some major unions in Britain. Now we have forced the European TUC to call action against unemployment in Luxembourg on November 20th.
The ground work has been laid for further campaigning on this issue which is increasingly recognised as the most important issue facing the British government. On other issues too there are positive signs
- such as the ability of supporters of Workers Liberty and Socialist Outlook to work together with members of the SLP and many activists of no affiliation in the Welfare State Network.
None of this is easy - tensions built on years of suspicion don't go away over night but without eradicating sectarianism we will never build a credible alternative to New Labour. We must build on these lessons in other key areas, while deepening the debate about what sort of organisation is needed to defend the interests of working people. * The author is a regular contributer to Socialist Outlook, the newspaper of British supporters of the Fourth International