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2005 - G8
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Dark side of the boom
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Ah, New Labour. Six years of spin later and we are all feeling a bit sick and dizzy. If you were still listening and believing, you might think it was boomtime. If, instead, you have been busy being lied to about the justification for war - and opposing it - then listen up to what they have been up to behind the scenes. Welcome to the dark side of the boom.
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The legislation on family tax credits now enables government officials to randomly enter the homes of low-income families to carry out risk assessments. The fact that this draconian legislation appeared with little parliamentary opposition reflects growing prejudice towards low-income families in general and low-income single parents in particular. Labour has sought to fan these prejudices by bringing forward a steady stream of measures that target low-income parents as the cause of their children’s anti-social behaviour, from truancy to teenage petty crime. Though largely unenforceable, these measures reinforce the media stereotypes of ‘feckless’ low-income parents, and help to divert attention away from the causes of inequality and poverty. Through this constant focusing of attention on parenting, Labour seeks to heap blame on the actions of individuals and away from the fact that children are being raised in jobless, no hope, drug-invested rat holes that have become the modern “sink estates.” This overwhelming concern of Labour for health and safety does not seem to extend beyond the alleged crime scene of working-class homes, however. It is a pity that Labour’s class-based bigotry cannot be reversed and applied to ensuring that the rich in society look after the care and safety of those in their charge better. As deregulation, casualisation and privatisation have taken hold and the profit motive let rip, the idea that companies are responsible and owe a “duty of care” to workers and customers alike has all-but disappeared. In the last ten years, some 3,000 workers and 1,100 members of the public have died in work-related accidents. Even though Labour came to power in 1997 with a manifesto commitment to do something about this corporate mass murder, thus far they have done nothing.Twice they announced that they were looking to bring forward an offence of corporate killing only to back-pedal in the face of hostility from big business. Then, amid a fanfare of publicity in May, it was announced that a Bill on corporate killing would be introduced. Away from the fanfare, it was quietly announced that individual directors would not face prison under the Bill. Before the whole Bill was kicked into the long grass, in July, it was announced that the issue of corporate killing was to be put out for ‘further consultation’ for the third time since Labour came to power. As Mick Holder of the Hazards Campaign stated at the time; “more consultation means it’s likely there will be no Act during the next parliamentary year, which means it’s anyone’s guess when legislation will arrive.”
Labour’s failure to move against companies that commit murder is a reflection of Labour’s attitudes in general. While those struggling at the bottom of society are treated with contempt, blamed and forced to toe the government line to the extent that we now have parents sent to prison when their children stay off school, those at the top of society are treated with deference and assumed to be blameless even when people are killed as a direct result of their criminal activities.
The fact that Labour has failed to do anything about corporate killing is proof, if proof were needed, that Labour has not the slightest intention to change the massive inequalities of power and wealth in 21st century Britain. Currently, the only law in force relating to work-related killing is corporate manslaughter. And under corporate manslaughter, prosecution can only be brought against individual company owners or directors if it can be proven they have “controlling” responsibility, i.e. in direct control of the routine day-to-day activities of the company. Though charges are brought against the owners of small companies, in the case of large corporations it has proven virtually impossible to bring charges against company directors because of the difficulty in proving direct day-to-day control.
If that was not bad enough, under the laws of corporate manslaughter, not only are the company directors immune, but it is also virtually impossible to bring a prosecution against the company as a whole. This is because charges can only be brought against a company if a director or very senior manager is prosecuted; the guilt of the company is entirely dependent on the guilt of the director, and, if the director is not prosecuted, the company remains immune.
Perhaps the biggest obscenity relating to the current law of corporate manslaughter is what happens to those few who are found guilty. The majority receive suspended sentences, with the companies being fined derisory amounts as low as £4,000 pounds. Take the case of the 18-year-old unskilled labourer killed at a shipyard in Hessle in April 2000. For the young man’s death, the company was fined £2,500, while the owner received a 5-month prison sentence suspended for two years. In the face of this state protection of capitalists, Labour has done nothing but make excuses and prevaricate. The best that can be hoped for is a token piece of legislation aimed at appeasing public disquiet.
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The Labour Party was originally formed to defend the weak and the poor; a hundred years on, and it is imprisoning single mothers for not sending their children to school, while the owners of companies get away with murder. Not that Labour is simply allowing bosses to get away with murder - they are actively encouraging it. Tony Blair’s proud boast is that Britain now has the most ‘flexible’ workforce in Europe. The casualisation of the British workforce inevitably comes at the cost of rising death tolls. Flexible working, casual contracts and agency working cause falling standards of health, safety and training. The evidence for the fact that casualisation kills is incontrovertible, and the more people die, the clearer the link is.
Casualisation is also a means of undermining wages and conditions. Blair’s boasts are shorthand for saying that Britain has the worst working conditions (and - another link - the fattest cats) in Europe.
Labour has presided over an explosion in agency work. A keynote report “Recruitment Agencies (Temporary and Contract) 2000 Market Report” shows that the number of workers placed in temporary work increased by 46.8% in the period 1997-2000. A Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS) in 1998 reported that over a quarter of workplaces use temporary agency workers. This may be good news for employers, who can now operate with a smaller wage bill, but it is bad news for the vast majority of temporary workers, who get less money and more danger at work.
A classic example of Blair’s ‘flexibility’ is workers at P&O Ferries, where 80% of crew members are now agency staff. Though many workers have decades of continuous experience, they work a 90-hour week from Wednesday to Wednesday and are then laid off for a week. In effect, they are employed on a 7-day contract, allowing P&O Ferries to avoid what legislation there is protecting casual workers.
Another example among thousands of workers exploited under Labour is teaching assistants - apparently, at the centre of the new knowledge-based economy.
Labour Research has revealed that less than half were on permanent contracts, while 40% of schools said their assistants were not paid during holidays. With a pay rate as little as £4.98 per hour, clearly, behind all the spin, Labour has proved disastrous for the most vulnerable workers. Its promises to empower women lie broken and scattered, as its real strategy has been revealed over the past 4 years; to force single mothers into part-time, low-paid, insecure jobs.
Anarcho-syndicalists have always argued that for workers, placing faith in politicians is worse than useless. The Labour Party is living proof of that argument.
Change will only come about through worker strength based on workplace organisation that forces change. The mass murder now taking place in the workplace will only come to an end when workers take matters into their own hands to ensure workplace safety.
For a summary of the Corporate Killing proposals, click here.
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