Oct 20th – Today’s the day. For months now workers have been dreading the arrival of this day – the date chosen by this bosses coalition to announce the biggest series of public spending cuts in living memory.
Much has already been leaked. Half a million public sector jobs to go by 2014 – one in ten civil servants. Many more jobs dependant on public spending will also be lost, including those in construction. This is because housing and other projects will be hit hard with most of the budget for social housing being cut. Rail fares will rise sharply, child benifits will be cut back, funding for many projects will disappear and so on and so on. Even prisons and the armed forces – much loved by the Tories – will be hit. This is on top of the measures already announced which include pay freezes for public sector workers and the slashing of school repair programmes. Every working class person in the UK will be affected.
Yesterday Westminster Central Hall was packed with trade unionists waiting to lobby their MPs. Today workers and youth in London will be marching from late afternoon onwards to an early evening demo outside Downing Street. The trade union movement must start to mobilise a mass campaign against the cuts – the time for moral appeals to reason has passed, what is needed is action. The TUC must put words into action, including the call for industrial action – the French and Greek workers have shown the way in what is a unified fight affecting all workers in all counries. A 24 hour general strike could play a key role here in mobilising the movement. The Poll Tax struggle against Thatcher showed that the Tories can be beaten, However, we should also be clear that even if some or all of the cuts were to be withdrawn or molified under pressure, the only real solution is the throwing out of this rotten capitalist system and the establishment of a socialist society. The monopolies, banks and finance houses should be nationalised to be run under a socialist plan of production for the benefit of all not the few.The struggle is both an industrial and a political one.
Over the next few days we will be publishing more material analysing the cuts, why they are happening and what must be done about it. Let struggle commence!
Feeder marches are assembling from 3.30pm onwards outside ULU in Malet St and at Lincoln Inn Fields near Holborn to head off to a rally outside Downing St.
