Gorst's grab for personal power

Charlie Parker's efforts to integrate his team of foreign consultants into the States apparatus and consolidate his and the Chief Minister's own power rumble on.

Yesterday, Parker announced that his gang of four - Anna Daroy, Stephen Hardwick, Jacquie McGeachie and Camilla Black - that made up the so-called "transition team" brought in to review the running of the civil service, having already cost the taxpayer £432K, will all be retained and be given permanent positions within the government apparatus. According to Parker, his four pets will be retained to support the delivery of "specific initiatives" - the details of which are unknown, effectively making them a permanent part of the States structure for the foreseeable future.

This comes only a week after the States (narrowly) approved the Chief Minister's grand plan for government reform - it will allow the Chief Minister to hire, fire and reshuffle ministers at will, move budgets between departments of his own accord, forms a single legal entity called the 'Jersey Ministers' under the personal control of the Chief Minister, and, most importantly, puts all States departments under the central direction of the Chief Executive - a person appointed by the Chief Minister. Given the amount of power being concentrated in the hands of a e structure of the government at will, bypassing such inefficiencies as scrutiny or public debate. Parker will be responsible for centrally directing all States departments in the way individual ministers do at present, and for ensuring that States money is spent "in an efficient way" - no word on how this will be defined, or what Parker's punishment will be if he should fail, and given that his position is by appointment, there will be no way for the public to hold him accountable.

With this additional announcement that Parker's people will be retained as a permanent part of the government structure, Parker - and by extension, the Chief Minister - are consolidating their own power and ensuring that even more of the government remains under their personal direction.

We've seen consolidation of personal power before - the introduction of the ministerial system of government in 2005 took power away from States members as a whole and vested it in the hands of a few - but at least under that system - the current system - ministers can be booted out at an election if the public judges them to have failed in their duties. The public has no way of getting rid of Parker or any future Chief Executive - he can't be voted out, his position isn't dependent on public approval of any kind. He serves at the pleasure of the Chief Minister, and as such is little more than an extension of their power. His new powers are little more than the Chief Minister taking direct control over all sections of government, except that should the Chief Minister make a serious mistake Parker is there as a fall guy.

The continued consolidation of power in the hands of the Chief Minister is possibly the most dangerous development in Jersey's political system since the introduction of ministerial government. Our government is and should always be the States of Jersey, not the all-powerful Chief Minister and his appointed lackey in the Chief Executive role. The problems within the civil service require a shift in organisational culture - handing off more and more powers to the Chief Minister will not solve the problem.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This is nothing more than a personal power grab, Gorst and Parker trying to grow their own power. In pursuing it, both have shown their utter contempt for democracy.

Whinging businessmen take aim at the disabled

Last week, the States passed new anti-discrimination legislation requiring that all businesses be sufficiently accessible by disabled people by 2020. Despite this being a major and important step forward for disabled rights in Jersey, Gerard Voisin, one of Jersey's more prominent activists against the rights of consumers and workers and further taxation of businesses (i.e. er, anything that might threaten his profits as the owner of the oldest family-run department store in Britain) has once again decided to speak up for those poor, oppressed business owners, warning that "some people might be put out of business" by the costs of installing disabled access, while lawyer Lindsay Edwards-Thatcher warned that "Jersey is introducing large amounts of regulation too quickly", adding that "this year is probably going to be the worst ever for employers".

Oh, cry me a river. These business types crying out at the supposed oppression of the businessman do my head in - frankly, if you can't comply with basic discrimination laws, you shouldn't be in business. End of. Laws against discrimination based on sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and, yes, disability are a cornerstone of any even nominally free society, and for businesses to whine that they can't afford to allow people who already suffer so much hardship in life to access their premises is pathetic. Certainly Mr Voisin, a man from one of Jersey's oldest mercantile families and owner of the Island's largest department store, has no right to be whinging that he can't afford it. Maybe some of that sweet family cash would help plug the gap, eh, Gerard?

Disabled rights are an area where progress is vitally needed - it should not be allowed to be discredited in the name of the profit margins of crybaby capitalists.

Democracy behind a paywall?

Don't you just love it when the wife of a former Chief Minister and oligarch tells you that what our electoral system REALLY needs is a paywall to keep out the plebs?

Apparently unaware of the complete lack of meaningful democracy in Jersey's system as it currently is, Fiona Walker, the wife of former Chief Minister Frank Walker (currently chairman of Andium Homes, courtesy of the old boys' club) has called for the introduction of a "deposit system" into Jersey's electoral system - to keep what she terms "no-hopers" and "time-wasters"off the ballot paper. 

The colonial subjects of the British Empire used to say that "when the gentlemen of England start losing the game, they change the rules". Even with Jersey's rotten-to-the-core electoral system, one which has been crying out for reform for years if not decades, the Island's elites refuse to loosen their grip on power - in the fine tradition of the 19th century reactionaries that resisted the tides of liberal capitalism (back when liberal capitalism was an emancipating movement), they instead propose the addition of further anti-democratic structures to strengthen the ruling elite and even further reduce the political power of those outside of the ruling clique - and it is those outside of that clique, people who desire a change to the system, who would be the victims of any paywall system. 

If Mrs Walker decided that she wished to stand for election, presumably, as the wife of an oligarch, she would have no trouble procuring the money to put down a deposit. You only need to look at recent elections to see this kind of thing in action - take Gino Risoli, a barely-literate, incoherent fruitcake who stood at the last two general elections. Regardless of how unlikely he would be to succeed (he came in bottom of the poll in St. Helier No.1 both times he stood), as a business owner he would have no trouble finding the cash for a deposit. Ditto figures like Maureen Morgan (of "black one-armed lesbians" fame; bottom of the poll with 6.8%, St. Helier No.1 by-election 2014)  or Chris Lamy (AKA la petit Farage, received 17% in the St. Ouen deputy election in 2014 to Richard Renouf's 83%) - these people clearly had no chance whatsoever of actually winning an election, but none of them would've had trouble finding money for a deposit. 

The people who would be really affected by the introduction of a deposit system wouldn't be nutters like Risoli, Morgan or Lamy, or indeed Mrs Walker - it would be ordinary people who want to change the way things are run, but don't have hundreds of pounds lying around for a deposit. It's perfectly clear to see that this, infact, is Walker's definition of a "no-hoper" - someone who disagrees with her and her husband. Money equals power equals more money; the Walkers know this simple equation very well, having exploited it for their own gain quite handily. The wealthy only have economic power because they have political power - to keep the means of production, the resources, the factories, the computer networks and whathaveyou under their control, they must control the political system, the police, the courts and suchlike. If the working class are without political power, they are unable to challenge the system that exploits them. 

It is worth remembering that the upper class - in Marxist terms, the bourgeoisie - are highly class conscious. They know that the system is rigged in their favour, and they work as a cohesive unit to maintain it. Walker's column should be seen for what it is - yet another attempt by a representative of the ruling class to divide everyone else - the proletariat - so that they might be lorded over more easily. 

Susie sees sense, but don't celebrate yet

It seems that my claim last week that the Social Security Minister, Susie Pinel, is sticking hard and fast to her austerity agenda of the last few years was spoken too soon! Yesterday, the States approved not only the minister's proposition of an increase in maternity, adoption and parental leave, the trebling of paid maternity leave from two to six weeks and the addition of two weeks paid maternity, but also the amendment lodged by Deputy Geoff Southern that commits the States to implement the full recommendations of the Employment Forum's report and give parents 52 weeks of paid leave (taken over 3 years) by 2019. While this is a big win for parents, the response to the other part of Deputy Southern's proposal, an increase in the time the States maternity allowance is paid from 18 to 26 weeks, is more concerning. 

Refusing to accept Southern's proposal in its entirety, the minister instead committed to a "review" of the costs of extending the maternity allowance - a cynic might say she is trying to stall the implementation of Southern's proposal, to bog it down in penny-pinching and costs scrutiny in order that it's either watered down or barely implemented at all. This version of the legislation was the one accepted by the States - it remains to see how this "review" proceeds, but I'd advise that Southern and the Reform party keep a weather eye open for any attempts to reduce the legislation down. There's nothing more dangerous for any decent social-democratic legislation than penny-pinching reviewers - it is crucial that this legislation is protected from them. 

RMT to bring protest action to Jersey?

After yesterday's Portsmouth protest against the exploitation of Ukrainian contract workers by Condor, the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), who organised the demonstration, have announced that they plan to hold a similar action in Jersey. Steve Todd, the RMT's national secretary, said that the Portsmouth protest had been a "really successful day", but that the RMT "can still do more and keep on going until we get proper results - the next step, he said, was to "organise something in Jersey", saying that "we need to let Islanders know what is going on".

More bad news for Condor then. After their statement earlier this week which claimed that "workers often choose to return to work for Condor rather than going elsewhere" - a thinly veiled way of saying that their pay is better than the pay they'd get in Ukraine, so RMT had better lay off (Is this really the kind of attitude that we want - exploitation is OK, so long as the people being exploited are paid more than they are in a post-Soviet country with a GDP lower than Angola and Sudan? (IMF estimate, 2017)) - they've refused to make any further comments on the matter. Strange - their PR department is usually so frantic to issue the denials and excuses when the Liberation is malfunctioning for the umpteenth time!

The Minister of Social Insecurity

Susie Pinel, bane of the unemployed, single mothers, and more generally anyone who has had to interact with the social security system, has announced her intention to stand for reelection, and what's more, she wants to keep the role of Social Security minister! Describing her role as "much-valued", she said she was "proud to be Minister for Social Security".

Pinel's record is essentially described as "la petite Iain Duncan Smith" - a minister given responsibility for social security who then proceeds to, er, do nothing but damage to the social security system. As the author of the brutal cuts of the 2016-19 Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP), it was her who laid the groundwork for the austerity campaign that has caused so much damage to the lives of those dependent on social security. She has consistently voted against propositions for her own department to improve people's lives, voting against proposals to raise the minimum wage, as well as voting not once but twice to make single parents £40 worse off (despite the fact that over half of them live in relative poverty). Her opposition to the January 2018 proposal to restore the benefit was apparently because it "isn't fair to offer extra help only to single parents" and that the scrutiny panel that had recommended the benefit be restored (Health and Social Security) had "failed to fully understand the social security system" - given that it was her own government that proposed this cut originally back in the MTFP, these excuses ring hollow. 

Parental rights is another critical Social Security issue, and one where Pinel saw herself far outpaced by the Chamber's left. While Pinel indicated that she might not even accept all the recommendations of the Employment Forum's report (the document that precipitated the most recent public debate on parental rights), Deputies Mézec and Southern brought forward radical proposals to increase parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks, as well as accepting the EF's recommendations. 

Her cuts come against a backdrop where they couldn't be more harmful. An Evening Post report in 2015 found that from 2010-15, Jersey's poorest households had become 30% worse off (https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2015/11/17/reform-jersey-plan-campaign-to-oust-deputy/). A more recent report based off of numbers from the States Statistics Unit found that over the last decade, the Island's economic standard of living has declined by a sixth. When poverty is on the rise, benefits cuts are the last thing that's needed - this is just another case of right-wing politicians preferring balancing the books over improving people's lives. 

Given that it's two months to an election, you might expect Pinel to be bending over backwards to try and win votes as most politicians are doing. Not this one, apparently - our Susie has stuck hard and fast to her austerity agenda, voting against Mézec proposals to raise the minimum wage and to restore the single parent benefit even as many of the Members who backed her in 2015 flocked to Mézec's side. Reform Jersey identified her seat as a target as early as 2015, meaning that the campaign to oust her will take special priority when the election campaign kicks off. 

My advice to the minister is pretty simple.

Be scared. 

RMT - Fighting for a Better Ferries

One of Britain's most radical trade unions held a protest today in Portsmouth against the exploitation of Ukrainian seafarers by Condor Ferries. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (AKA the RMT) are protesting against the exceptionally low wages of Ukrainian contract workers on Condor's ships.

According to the RMT, these workers are being paid as little as £2.46 an hour while working a 12-hour day - the union isn't being hyperbolic when they describe it as a "poverty wage". Twenty years after the National Minimum Wage Act (one of the Blair government's few substantial achievements), this is still a problem up and down the country, with RMT saying that a "vast majority" of the 87,000 ratings workers across the UK are paid less than the National Minimum Wage - as RMT's General Secretary, Mick Cash, said, "With wages like that it is no wonder that between 1980 and 2016 the number of UK Ratings fell by over 60%".

You'd think that with 81% customer dissatisfaction from Channel Islanders in 2016, Condor would be investing in their workers. Apparently, filling the pockets was deemed more important than paying the people working 12 hours a day at sea.

One of the RMT's demands, the recognition of the union to collectively bargain for seafarer ratings, is particularly important, perhaps even more so than than the demand for ratings to be paid a living wage. The RMT have Condor's workers in experienced and effective hands - as the union representing the vast majority of railway workers on the London Underground, they have built a reputation for a confrontational but effective attitude that has fought for well-paying and secure jobs on the Tube whilst wages fell and fell all around them - under Bob Crow, the union's previous General Secretary, the union's membership soared from around 57,000 in 2002 to 80,000 in 2014, whilst the wages of London Tube drivers actually rose to £52,000 (nearly twice the minimum wage). As Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, noted, "The only working-class people who still have well-paid jobs in London are [RMT] members". These days, their efforts are directed against Southern Rail's attempts to sacrifice safety and jobs for the sake of profit by transitioning to driver-only operated trains. RMT is a union which employers should fear, and with the ongoing stevedore strikes in France, Condor can hardly afford to get bolshy with the unions.

Let's hope the management take heed.