On this day, 21 March 1991, the abolition of the poll tax in the UK was announced, following a mass non-payment campaign and widespread rioting. The hated tax, introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, charged the working class the same as the rich as there was a charge for every individual in a household.
Despite the defeat of the working class movement in Britain in the 1980s, people up and down the country self-organised an unprecedented campaign which resulted in over 17 million people refusing to pay, with thousands of people clogging the country’s court system. It was later replaced by the council tax, which charged rates based on house value.
This is a short history of the movement which defeated it: https://libcom.org/history/1989-1990-opposition-poll-tax
Pictured: poll tax riot in Trafalgar Square https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1379722678879545/?type=3
🅱️ocialist 🅱️lternative is the North American section of International Socialist Alternative, a socialist organization with close to ten thousand active members on 6 continents.
CWI comrades have been instrumental in the fight for affordable housing
and a higher minimum wage here in the US, the abortion rights movement
in Ireland, the struggle against transphobia in the UK, underground labor organizing in China and Nigeria,
and the fight against climate change and capitalist hegemony all over the world.
You might have heard of the Kshama Sawant election campaigns in Seattle– that was us! In 2013 and again in 2019 we ran a candidate for Seattle city council on a platform of living wages and affordable housing, and we busted Bezos’s balls.
SAlt’s goal is to build a movement for social justice and workers’
rights in the United States independent from the two major parties and
from corporate control.
From the website:
Socialist Alternative is the organization that
spearheaded the campaign to elect Kshama Sawant to Seattle City Council
in 2013, the first independent socialist elected in a major U.S. city in
decades. We then led the successful campaign to raise Seattle’s minimum
wage to the highest in the country, providing a massive boost to the
$15 Now campaign that is spreading around the country.
Kshama Sawant was successfully re-elected to the Seattle
City Council in 2015 as a Socialist Alternative member, without any
corporate cash, despite half a million dollars being spent on the
campaign to unseat her.
Socialist Alternative is a national organization fighting
in our workplaces, communities, and campuses against the exploitation
and injustices people face every day. We are community activists
fighting against budget cuts in public services; we are activists
campaigning for a $15 an hour minimum wage and fighting, democratic
unions; we are people of all colors speaking out against racism and
attacks on immigrants, students organizing against tuition hikes and
war, women and men fighting sexism and homophobia.
We believe the Republicans and Democrats are both parties
of big business, and we are campaigning to build an independent,
alternative party of workers and young people to fight for the interests
of the millions, not the millionaires.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Fighting for the 99%
Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, as a step toward a living wage for all.
Free, high quality public education for all from
pre-school through college. Full funding for schools to dramatically
lower student-teacher ratios. Stop the focus on high stakes testing and
the drive to privatize public education.
Free, high quality health care for all. Replace the
failed for-profit insurance companies with a publicly funded
single-payer system as a step towards fully socialized medicine.
No budget cuts to education and social services! Full
funding for all community needs. A major increase in taxes on the rich
and big business, not working people.
Create living-wage union jobs for all the unemployed
through public works programs to develop mass transit, renewable energy,
infrastructure, healthcare, education, and affordable housing.
For rent control combined with massive public investment in affordable housing.
A guaranteed decent pension for all. No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!
A minimum guaranteed weekly income of $600/week for the
unemployed, disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and others
unable to work.
Repeal all anti-union laws like Taft-Hartley. For
democratic unions run by the rank-and-file to fight for better pay,
working conditions, and social services. Full-time union officials
should be regularly elected and receive the average wage of those they
represent.
No more layoffs! Take bankrupt and failing companies into public ownership.
Break the power of Wall Street! For public ownership and democratic control of the major banks.
Shorten the workweek with no loss in pay and benefits; share out the work with the unemployed and create new jobs.
Environmental Sustainability
Fight climate change. Massive public investment in
renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies to rapidly replace
fossil fuels.
A major expansion of public transportation to provide low fare, high-speed, and accessible transit.
Democratic public ownership of the big energy companies,
retooling them for socially necessary green production. A “Just
Transition” for all workers in polluting industries with guaranteed
re-training and new living-wage jobs.
Equal Rights for All
Fight discrimination based on race, nationality, gender,
sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, and all
other forms of prejudice. Equal pay for equal work.
Black Lives Matter! Build a mass movement against police
brutality and the institutional racism of the criminal justice system.
Invest in rehabilitation, job-training, and living-wage jobs, not
prisons! Abolish the death penalty.
Defend immigrant rights! Immediate, unconditional legalization and equal rights for all undocumented immigrants.
Fight sexual harassment, violence against women, and all forms of sexism.
Defend a woman’s right to choose whether and when to
have children. For a publicly funded, single-payer health care system
with free reproductive services, including all forms of birth control
and safe, accessible abortions. Comprehensive sex education. At least 12
weeks of paid family leave for all. For universal, high quality,
affordable and publicly run child care.
Fight discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ community, and all forms of homophobia and transphobia.
Money for Jobs and Education, Not War
End the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bring all the troops home now!
Slash the military budget. No drones. Shut down Guantanamo.
Repeal the Patriot Act, NDAA, and all other attacks on democratic rights.
Break with the Two Parties of Big Business
For a mass workers party drawing together workers, young
people and activists from environmental, civil rights, and women’s
campaigns, to provide a fighting, political alternative to the corporate
parties.
Unions and other social movement organizations should
stop funding and supporting the Democratic and Republican Parties and
instead organize independent left-wing, anti-corporate candidates and
coalitions as a first step toward building a workers’ party.
Socialism and Internationalism
Capitalism produces poverty, inequality, environmental
destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this
failed system. No to corporate “free trade” agreements, which mean job
losses and a race to the bottom for workers and the environment.
Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally: An injury to one is an injury to all.
Take into public ownership the top 500 corporations and
banks that dominate the U.S. economy. Run them under the democratic
management of elected representatives of the workers and the broader
public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small
investors, not millionaires.
A democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the
interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.
For a socialist United States and a socialist world.
“But conrad,” you say, “how am I get involved with this very good and nice organization??” Well, that’s easy!
SAlt has active branches
in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Washington state,
California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Texas, Illinois, Ohio,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, AND accepts at-large / nomad
members.
You need only follow this link and fill out the form and somebody will get back to you real quick.
