While hundreds of thousands of civil servants,
teachers and health workers are fighting to defend their pensions, the Tory Lib
Dem Coalition are preparing further attacks on all sections of the working
class people. The March 21st budget was a budget by the rich, for the rich. Pensioners, those on benefits, the
unemployed – all will be hit hard, yet the rich are rewarded with tax handouts.
While hundreds of thousands of civil servants,
teachers and health workers are fighting to defend their pensions, the Tory Lib
Dem Coalition are preparing further attacks on all sections of the working
class. The March 21st budget was a budget by the rich, for the rich. Pensioners, those on benefits, the
unemployed – all will be hit hard, yet the rich are rewarded with tax handouts.
Chancellor George Osborne has also now raised the prospect of regional pay
settlements for public sector employees, resulting in further pay freezes or
cuts for workers in large parts of the country. No doubt many will be angered even more by the Tories utter
contempt for front line workers in key essential services; essential that is
unless you can afford to use private health care, or send your sons and heirs
to public school.
The budget presented tax cuts for rich alongside
a whole number of attacks on working class living standards. 330,000 very
wealthy people will now enjoy a nice bonus as they see their tax rate cut by
5%. Anyone earning over a million will pocket at least an additional £40,000 a year. The
excuse given for cutting the 50p tax rate was that too many people are finding
ways to avoid paying it – so crime does pay! They will also do well out of the
cut in corporation tax to first 24% and then 22%.
The situation for the poor is
very different. Benefits are again under attack with another £10 billion in
welfare spending to be cut on top of the £18 billion already planned. The raising
of the tax threshold will not help the poorest sections of society either since
benefits will be cut to match the increase in pay. As usual, the unemployed did
not feature in this budget at all and those on the minimum wage will get nothing at all.
A number of tax increases were sneaked through including the
imposition of 20% on a whole number of new items including certain take-away
foods. The biggest surprise of all was the imposition of a so-called ‘granny
tax.’ The ‘reform’ of pensioners’ personal tax allowances will mean over £3
billion being pocketed by the Chancellor at their expense. Over 350,000
pensioners will lose out by £285 a year for starters. It has also been announced that the state pension age will
henceforth be subject to automatic review. According to a pensions expert at
Standard Life, this could mean a steady pushing up of the retirement age so
that anyone born this year may have to work until they are 80. (Metro March 22)
The implications of Tory policy have become clear to
hundreds of thousands of public sector workers. The gloves are off and a series
of battles over key issues are taking place that will determine the future of
the public sector for many years. It is no surprise that the strike on November
30th was the biggest day of strike action in 85 years; the attacks
on the public sector workers are unparalleled in decades. The announcement on
regional pay too is designed to break national pay bargaining, freeze or cut pay
and make parts of the public sector more attractive for private buyers in the
future. The only way to respond to the challenge is by mobilizing the whole of
the power of the trade union movement.
The Tories want to cut public sector pay and pensions
to dampen expectations in the private sector. They are afraid that the mood is
starting to shift and will have noted that the Sparks dispute well illustrates
that militant action pays dividends. This won’t be lost on workers in other
sectors of the economy where for a number of years the bosses have had the
upper hand.
Not only are large numbers of redundancies from the public sector on the cards over the next few weeks
but so far only 12% of planned
cuts have been implemented.These together with pay cuts and
attacks on pensions will merely cut the market further in Britain creating a
downward economic spiral that threatens to aggravate the already dire situation
where over a million unemployed young people have been thrown onto the
scrapheap. Cuts in education and huge hikes in tuition fees are closing off the
options to hundreds of thousands of working class teenagers.
To add insult to injury the Tories are now considering
charging workers for the privilege of sitting in traffic jams on underfunded
congested motorways, while pushing up rail fares and cutting local government
funding for maintenance and repairs.
Every time the government tries to solve its problems
with a new policy or with further austerity cuts it only undermines its support and
makes the situation worse. As in the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major,
the Tory Party will become a party of the South East of England. The Lib Dems
on the other hand look like they are heading the same way as the Dodo.
Capitalism has long outstayed its welcome. The
government has been revealed to be precisely what Karl Marx and Frederich
Engels suggested in the Communist Manifesto; merely the Executive Committee of
the capitalist class. Meanwhile the Labour leaders are offering no way out for
working people; deliberately offering nothing so that they can’t be accused of
failing to deliver if they make it back into office at the next election.
Workers are looking for answers, not vague promises and shallow
commitments. The recent debacle over Miliband and Ed Balls’ statements about a
public sector pay freeze has angered even previously loyal sections of the
party and the trade union movement. Increasingly the trade union movement is
going to demand from Labour a political expression of its struggle in the
public sector. The arguments of the Marxists for a complete break with
capitalism and for a socialist programme have never been more relevant.
