Over 1500 people gathered in • Friends' Meeting House on
Sunday 25 January for the launch convention of RESPECT, the unity coalition. Speaker after speaker highlighted the crisis in neo-liberalism, the democratic deficit in England and the need to fight back on the streets and at the ballot box.
Opening the conference chair Nick Wrack said, "This conference has been called because of the crisis of representation facing working class people in every aspect of their daily lives."
A voice was needed, he said, for the 2 million who marched against the war on 15 February 2003. A voice was needed for students, pensioners, trade unionists whose jobs were being sold off through privatisation.
A voice was needed for anti-racist, anti-fascist and community campaigners. RESPECT was being formed to provide that voice.
Unity was the key message of the day. The importance of building the widest possible coalition was •continually stressed, together with the need for a new political organisation that is open and democratic and that is truly a campaigning organisation - not simply contesting at the ballot box.
There was a broad consensus on most of the issues voted on, with the founding declaration proposed by the steering group passed overwhelmingly. M ark Serwotka,
Secretary of the PCS, went I through the appalling record of 7 years of Labour government - a government whose first act was to keep Tory spending plans for 2 years.
A Labour government that has carried out vicious attacks on lone parents. A Labour government that has attacked pensions, leaving a situation in which only 1 in 4 private sector workers has a final salary pension scheme.
Serwotka talked about the forthcoming
civil service strike as the largest since 199l.
He talked of the disgrace of a quarter of civil
service employees being paid less than
€13,750 and the scandal of a 27.2% median
pay gap between men and women in the
service
He also condemned New Labour's war
drive and stressed the importance of
RESPECT campaigning on trade union
Yes, for pensioners rights, against poverpcS STANDING TOGETHER ON DAY ty and against racism and the far right.
He condemned New Labour for treating asylum seekers like 3rd or 4th class citizens and condemned the treatment of internees at Guantanamo Bay.
From the SSP Tommy Sheridan praised Serwotka as one of the few trade union leaders to stand up for his members rather General than friends in New Labour
Sheridan talked about the launch of the SSP in 1999, with the aim of uniting the working class in Scotland to work for socialist ideas of people being put before profit and co-operation before competition. He highlighted the scandal of 16,500 pensioners in Scotland dying prematurely in the last 5 years because of poverty.
Speakers from the floor, including and anti-war activists, highlighted the desperate need for a political alternative.
Ghada Razuki from the Stop the War Coalition said that around the country those disgusted by Blair's war drive have been looking for a political alternative.
Socialist Alliance councillor, Michael Lavalette highlighted the importance of moving quickly to build Respect as a representative organisation
pcs fair pay Civil servants are the latest to realise that the demand for fair pay can only be won in a head-on clash with the New Labour government. tance of Respect having a programme that could appeal to the maximum possible audience. Kor ane because react or democratic representation for working people. He highlighted the socialist nature of the Respect programme, with its emphasis on common ownership and democratic control as the basis on which society should be organised. was not a manifesto and called on the convention not to add huge chunks to the declaration at this moment in time. the widest possible visibility for the Respect project by, for example, taking adverts in the press and reaching out to mass audiences.
Gennaro Migliore, Secretary of Rifondazione Comunista spoke
of Respect as a step forward in the new worldwide movement demanding that another world is possible. the global anti-capitalist movement, saying
the world with people's consent it of Respect." A STANDING TOGETHER ON PAY for all Demand national pay become part of the coalition. Lindsay German explained the impor-" of civil liberties.
en Loach called the event "his- seeker rights
wing together because of the lack of
munities He stressed that the founding declaration
forces like the BNP He said that it was important for us to get
Internationa left." Migliore talked about the importance of
capitalist globalisation undermines reach out to