Throughout the four hours of the indoor rally at the Methodist Central
Hall in Coventry on Saturday June 19th, some 140 trade unionists and members of
Coventry communities came together and participated. The rally had been convened
by the Unite union to highlight the ongoing dispute between youth workers
organised in the CYWU section of Unite and Coventry City Council. The rally
also attracted regional and national publicity and was featured on the national
BBC news.
80 part time
youth workers in Coventry have been involved in an industrial dispute including
strike action since November 2009. They are fighting to keep their
professional contracts and terms and conditions and stop cuts and privatisation
of young people’s services.” Socialist Appeal has previously carried
two articles on the dispute.
“The attack
on the youth workers was started by a Tory Council and a private consultancy
that got paid well for proposing cuts of up to £10,000 a year for part time
workers and over £120,000 in essential services to young people. Councils
throughout the country are doing the same.” As the leaflet says, “They must be
stopped.”
“This is the
longest dispute in youth work’s history. It is one dispute, but symbolises a
lot. We have seen
the effects on our communities of manufacturing decline and unemployment.
We have felt
the bad effects of privatisation and worse terms and conditions. What if we now
accept big cuts to our public services? This is the thin end of a very big
wedge in Coventry and elsewhere. What future will there be for our young people
if we have no manufacturing, no public services and no welfare and education
support for people? Coventry and the Midlands were proud manufacturing centres of
excellence and full employment. Our young people were valued and we built youth
services with them. What if this is all pulled apart?”
Although the
rally focussed in on the youth workers dispute and attracted support not only
locally but also delegations from many parts of
the country including Devon, a succession of speakers from trade unions
and the community generalised the issue by highlighting the serious situation
that working people are in with these attacks on their terms and conditions.
The main
speaker was Len McClusky, Deputy General Secretary of Unite the Union. He said
that Unite would stand shoulder to shoulder with the youth workers until
victory, that the trade unions will not accept the notion that working people
should pay for the crisis and that the public sector debt was caused by the
bank. He said that cuts will not be tolerated and that our communities would be
defended “even on the streets if necessary”.
It was a fiery, rousing speech that went down well with the
audience.
Solutions to
the crisis however were in short supply. For Len the debt could be solved by
ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by ensuring the end of tax avoidance
that amounted to between £24bn and £100bn a year, by introducing the Tobin tax
of 0.005% on all financial transactions and by achieving economic growth. No
socialist would disagree with any of these measures. The question however is
whether they in and of themselves would solve the crisis.
The writer
of this report pointed out that when the banks collapsed, they came cap in hand
and begged the state to bail them out. In a variety of measures by the Labour
government some £850 bn of public money was used to try and end the financial
crisis. So the banks were full of public money and yet when the government went
to the banks for loans using the method of selling government bonds to the
money markets, the same financiers told the government that they would lend the
money if they were assured that the loan would be repaid. And the only way to assure
that the government could repay the loans and not become a victim of sovereign
debt, the effective bankruptcy of an entire country, was to cut public sector
debt by attacking all the reforms that had been gained by the struggle of
working people. The money markets were dictating to the government. And this is
happening all over Europe, so any notion of getting out of the crisis through
economic growth when demand for goods and services is being cut through
unemployment and cuts in wages is not facing up to the reality of the crisis.
Given this
scenario there were two forms of action to take. Firstly, the trade union
members must be mobilised by the trade union leaderships to organise to fight
to defend services and jobs. This should take place across the public and
so-called private sector so that one section of workers is not played off
against another. Secondly, the fight must also be political and trade unionists
should enter the labour party to reclaim it for socialist policies, one of
which must be the demand for the taking into public ownership of the whole
financial system, the banks, finance houses and insurance companies.
The rally
was excellent and Unite is to be congratulated for convening it. Entertainment in
the form of singing and dancing was also provided by local youth groups. The
next step is already underway. Coventry Trades Union Council has convened a
rally for Tuesday June 22nd, Budget Day, at 6.30pm outside the
Council House in Coventry. The rally will then move on to the Hare and Squirrel
Pub in Greyfriars Lane to a meeting convened by CTUC to set up a city-wide anti
cuts campaign committee with representation from trade unions and community
groups. The focus of the campaign will be – WE DID NOT CAUSE THE CRISIS SO WE
WILL NOT PAY FOR IT.
