The Tories’ cut-it-yourself co-op plan
SINCE HE became leader of the
Conservative Party, David Cameron has attempted to portray himself as a
‘caring Conservative’, trying to shake off the Tories’ image as the
‘nasty party’. This opinion is still held by many workers, particular an
older layer who remember first-hand the Thatcher government. The Tories’
recent policy paper, Power to Public Sector Workers, which puts the case
for ‘Conservative co-ops’, is the latest move of this nature. While
reading it, the phrase ‘beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing’ comes to
mind.
All of the establishment
political parties are unified on the idea that there must be swingeing
public-sector cuts to address the budget deficit. And they all have
conducted an ideological campaign to attempt to blame public-sector
workers for the current recession, which is a systemic crisis of the
order they represent. The scale of these cuts was outlined in The
Guardian, which argued that "
up to 10% of the wage
bill must be cut, amounting to up to 170,000 of the 1.7 million
public-sector workers employed by councils. They include cleaners,
administrators, refuse collectors and care workers". (1 March)
In this context, the idea of
reorganising public services so that they are run as "employee owned
co-operatives" may seem appealing on the surface. Some workers may see a
co-operative as a way to avoid the huge job cuts that are being
threatened, reasoning that ‘if we run the service ourselves, we won’t
have to cut those jobs’.
This is not the case with the
Tory proposals. The policy paper outlines how co-operatives would be
funded through a "tariff system which gives fixed levels of payment in
return for the achievement of national standards". From this, it is
clear that the cuts which are being threatened nationally would continue
under the Tory co-op system but the axe would be passed down the line.
The supposedly directly accountable co-op management would be the ones
forced to swing it. The freedom to manage a local budget without
"targets, meddling and managerial oversight" is no freedom when those
funds are being centrally controlled and cut.
The policy paper points to
the example of Your Healthcare, Kingston (a primary care trust), as an
existing ‘social enterprise’, which the Tories’ co-operative proposals
would seek to emulate. This is little more than privatisation through
the back door, and this PCT has already lined up spending cuts of around
5.2% a year, with this expected to rise to almost 30% by 2013!
When Your Healthcare,
Kingston was established in 2009, it was strongly opposed by trade
unions in the health sector. A spokesperson from the Unite union
commented: "
A not-for-profit organisation is
set up now but in five years there’s nothing to stop an American
multinational coming in and putting in a cheaper bid and you have got
privatisation through the back door".
This is also the case with
the Tories’ current proposals. As their policy paper explains: "We will
give co-ops freedom to go into joint-ventures with outside experts,
buying in managerial and operational experts where necessary… joint
venture is the best way to grow co-ops without pumping in more state
money, which in the present economic crisis we cannot afford to do". So
their proposals will create a situation where local services are forced
to be cut to the bone or co-ops are forced to go to the private sector
to be bailed out – or a combination of the two.
For socialists, it is not
simply the form of management or ownership that has to be looked at, but
also the direction it is moving in. In the bailout of the banking
system, for instance, billions of pounds of our money was used to prop
up these rotten institutions. RBS and others are now majority public
owned. But we have no control over them and the establishment parties
have made it clear that the banking system will be handed back to
fully-private ownership as soon as is possible. What we have now is a
transitional form of ownership moving back towards privatisation, not
towards democratic control.
The same is the case with
this policy paper. For all the spin, these co-op proposals would be a
step away from accountability and democratic control and a step towards
privatisation of whole new swathes of our public services. We support
genuine democratic control of resources and public ownership where trade
unionists, community groups and service users have a direct say in the
running of services. This is not what the Tories are proposing.
The ideological underpinning
of their proposals are exposed clearly in the document: "This is the
most significant shift in power from the state to working people since
the sale of council houses in the 1980s, which gave millions of people
across Britain greater freedom, security and control over their daily
lives". In reality, the gutting of council house stock has pushed a
whole generation into the hands of private landlords and removed
"security and control" from millions. In the same way, these proposals
swing the balance of power towards private companies whose primary
interest is not that of the public but of their shareholders and
executives.
The policy paper attempts to
present evidence that there is public support for their proposals by
citing a survey which claims "The social enterprise model [is] an
overwhelming winner. They got 64% of votes, compared to 11% for
government, 9% for business and just 5% preferring a non-profit
charity". But this poll does not go into detail about how a social
enterprise would be run or what the implications of services being
transferred to this system would be. What the poll really reveals is an
overwhelming opposition to wholesale privatisation, along with a
distrust of direct government control because of the poor service and
cutbacks that many people have experienced. It is clear from a closer
reading of the Tories’ proposals that cuts would continue and private
companies’ involvement in service provision would increase, both of
which the overwhelming majority are opposed to.
By using the language of
co-operatives, there is also an element of daring New Labour to oppose
them – the co-operative movement of the 19th and early 20th century came
from the working class and was an attempt to provide a rudimentary
system of welfare, healthcare and education. Many involved in the
co-operative movement were also pioneers of the early Labour Party. What
the Tories are proposing is a million miles from what these pioneers
stood for. They were organising co-ops before the welfare state had been
won. In today’s context, the move is designed to weaken the welfare
state.
But the Tories have
recognised that New Labour is an out-and-out party of big business. They
are goading them to oppose these proposals, but this cannot be done
effectively without explaining what the activists of the early Labour
Party stood for. Once again, the political debate on a national level is
neutered by the fact that the establishment politicians are unified on
all key political issues. A working-class political voice is desperately
needed to cut through this spin.
Over the next period, the
fight to defend jobs and services will have to be stepped up. Part of
being able to do this will be the battle to cut through deceptive
policies like those outlined in this policy paper and explain the
substantive issues. In this instance, if the proposals were to be
carried out, it would lead to further cuts and privatisation taking
place at local levels. This must be opposed and we need to fight for
fully publicly owned and democratically accountable services with the
funding necessary to improve and expand, not cut back.
