Welsh Communists @ Wales TUC 2010 Comiwnyddion Cymru @ CULl Cymru 2010 Unite Against the Banksters! by Rick Newnham
We need a peoples’ coalition against cuts by Robert Griffiths Big business and the City have got the government they wanted in a hung parliament. A Blue-Yellow Tory coalition will now lead the ruling class offensive against public services, jobs and employment and trade union rights. This week's £6.2 billion cut in government current spending this coming financial year is not even the beginning. What happened to the LibDems' pre-election warning that such a cut would risk a double-dip recession? New Labour's Budget in March had already proposed a £10 billion reduction in capital expenditure. In Wales, this means total spending cuts announced so far of around £600 million over the next two years, with at least £187 million out of the National Assembly block grant. Of course, these sums are small beer compared with the £1,350 billion spent or pledged in bailing out the banks and money markets during the Great Finance Crash. They are not necessary, when taxing the rich and big business monopoly profits would easily close the budget deficit. But they will cost thousands of jobs and worsen the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. And the Blue-Yellow Tory
'emergency budget' on June 22 may stick the knife in even deeper. Certainly, a rise in VAT is on the cards - a regressive tax not based on ability to pay. This leaves the whole trade union movement facing an enormous challenge in the period to come. We have to explain to service users and community-based organisations that public spending cuts will unavoidably hit front-line services, as back-up posts and services deteriorate. Slashing procurement expenditure will have an immediate impact on private sector jobs, wages and conditions as well. In July 2009, a TUC report revealed that 29 per cent - almost a third - of public expenditure goes directly to private sector enterprises in procurement and subsidies. That's a higher proportion of the public budget than the 26 per cent which goes on public sector pay (and which mostly ends up buying goods and services produced by the private sector). The objective basis therefore exists to unite all trade unions in a huge coalition against public spending cuts. At local level, Trades Councils can play an important role in developing Continued Overleaf
With the election of a Tory-Liberal (Conned 'em) government, trades unions and the members and communities they represent face a huge challenge. We will have to defend the conditions and services that make life bearable for millions of people. But it is not enough to merely look forward and prepare for the battles to come. The Labour movement has missed a decade of opportunity by supporting New Labour and its pro-big business, imperialist and anti- trade union agenda. Whenever it really mattered, the affiliated unions allowed the attacks on working people to continue - indeed they bankrolled them! As New Labour leave office, let us not forget. One in three children in Wales live in poverty. The gap between rich and poor is of Victorian proportions. The basic state pension languishes well below the poverty line. We have far fewer doctors or hospital beds than the European average. We lock up more young people than any one else in Europe. Our anti trade union laws are some of the most reactionary in the developed world. And we engage in more wars than any country in the world except the USA. To ensure big business profits, there is a colossal housing shortage which created artificially high prices for those who can afford them. Blair and Brown maintained mass unemployment - always around two
million - particularly amongst young people, allowing wages to be held down while pensions, terms and conditions were eroded. New Labour also committed itself to breaking up public services in favour of market-driven privatisation, PFI schemes and schools run by tycoons & religious fanatics.
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