All the published reports on unemployment indicate the worst figures since the mid 1990s, a time when Labour became the government and said that things could only get better. What a sick joke! Does the People’s Charter , vigorously promoted within the labour and trade union movement as a programme to defeat unemployment, offer anything different? Darrall continues his analysis, begun in issue 177 .

The Charter’s second demand is for “More and Better Jobs” We agree. To combat job losses we need to create jobs that pay a living wage. Within this general demand there are a number of sub -demands that have two components: to protect existing jobs and create new ones.

"Existing jobs must be protected." Again we agree, but how is this to be done?  When we analysed the first demand of the People’s Charter we said that, under capitalism, production takes place to make a profit. To do this part of the value created by labour is appropriated by the owners of the means of production. This surplus value goes into the pocket of the capitalist. In the present recession jobs are being cut as the capitalist seeks to maintain their share of the surplus value. This is the objective basis of the class struggle. How do we stop this happening? The Charter puts forward part of a solution.

“Reduce hours, not pay, to create more jobs.” In other words share out the existing work with no loss of pay. But this will cut into the profits of the capitalist. He will say that he cannot afford it. What do we do then? The logical next step is to demand the opening of the company books to worker inspection to see where all the surplus value created by the workers has gone – dividends, bonuses, directors’ pay, investment and so on. What if the accounts show that under capitalism, under the system driven by profit, sharing out the work with no loss of pay will put the company into the red and risk closure? What do we then demand?

We will have two choices – either we accept the argument of the capitalist that to keep the factory open we have to shed labour or we state that if capitalism cannot guarantee jobs, then it has to go. Socialist Appeal says that any production unit threatening closure should be occupied by the workforce and the demand raised for it to be nationalised under workers’ control and management. There is no middle way. It’s either one or the other.

“Public and private investment must create new jobs paying decent money, in particular in manufacturing, construction and green technology.” The comrades supporting the Charter are right to highlight these three areas. Wealth is created by the production of commodities for sale. We need at least five million new houses, so put land, unemployed building workers and cement/brick works together to build homes. The future of humanity can only be assured if we don’t destroy the planet’s ecosystem. But let us repeat – private investment takes place to produce profits, surplus value, not to create jobs. So it has to be public investment.

The state has to invest, but does it invest in private companies leaving control and management in the hands of the capitalists? That won’t solve the problem of unemployment - and where does the finance come from to invest, especially at a time of public sector cuts to balance the public debt? Should the state borrow money for investment from the private sector at exorbitant interest rates? Surely not. Thereby it would increase the public debt even further - that can only be redressed by future cuts.

We say that the state should nationalise the means of production and the land under workers’ control and management as part of a socialist plan  to meet people’s needs. We should nationalise the banks that have caused so much havoc.

More jobs mean more spending power to stimulate the economy, increased tax revenue and fewer people on benefit. With this we see what the Charter supporters want – a return to Keynesian economics. We pay workers to dig holes in the road and fill them up. They get paid and they spend. It is called the multiplier effect. There is however a down side. If we pay people to make things that are not bought and sold in the market place there is a danger that we are merely stoking the fire of inflation by increasing the money supply, exactly what the Labour government is doing now with “quantitative easing” or printing money it does not have!

Let us be concrete with this demand. We need a crash building programme of affordable social housing, schools, hospitals and roads to give employment to the jobless. But this has to be related to the need to change society. If it is not, then what we are doing is trying to tinker with a capitalist system over which we have no control.

"Build full employment. Raise the minimum wage to half national median earnings and end the lower rate for young workers." Again, what does this mean? If it means work or full pay, then say so. If it means work at a living wage, then say so. But again who decides the wage levels? Is it the government by law? At the moment there are thousands of workplaces up and down the country that are not even paying the miserly minimum wage and there is nobody to police them. Will the wages be set by employer and trade union collective agreements? What about non-unionised workshops?  Let us repeat. Wages are payment for part of the value produced by labour. If we increase wages we cut into the surplus value creamed off by the capitalists.

Click here to read Part One of the review of the Charter.