Unity! Women's TUC 2011

4

Unity!

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

Women bear the brunt of the cuts

by Anita Wright

On the 6 December last year the Fawcett Society went to the High Court to challenge the legality of Chancellor George Osborne’s proposal to immediately cut public spending by over £18 billion.

The Fawcett Society argued that this would have a disproportionate impact on women and that the Con-Dem government had failed in their legal duty to conduct a gender equality assessment.

Mr Justice Ouseley concluded that the Government had failed to adequately consider the impact of its decisions on women but decided not to grant a judicial review preferring to call on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to undertake a full assessment of government actions.

Such is the contempt that this Government has for working people, and women in particular, that when it came to the Comprehensive Spending Review they ignored their own report on gender impact and slashed public spending

anyway. With anticipated cuts of £113 billion in 2014-15 and £128 billion per year by 201516, we face the biggest ideological and political attack seen for generations with women bearing the brunt of the cuts.

Women are disproportionally affected in three ways: as workers, as carers and as service users.

With women making up over 65% of public sector workers, they will be the biggest losers when it comes to job cuts. The TUC estimates that of the proposed 500,000 public sector jobs to be axed, 325,000 of those losing their job will be women. In 2009 Unison estimated that around 1million public sector workers, most of whom are women were paid less than £7 per hour. The two-year pay freezes being imposed on the public sector will mean that women will suffer most.

February 2011 figures also show that, in the last year, the number of women claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance has risen by 12%.

The number of women aged 2549 on JSA is now at its highest since 1997.

With women making up 90% of lone parents and 53% of housing benefit claimants, changes to the benefit system including the abolition of the £190 Health in Pregnancy Grant and Baby Element of the Tax Credits worth a maximum of £545; a 10% cut in childcare costs in Working Tax Credit,

www.communist-party.org.uk www.solidnet.org

three-year freeze on the value of Child Benefit, clearly puts the lie to a Government that calls itself family friendly.

Women are in the front line of Government attacks because they use these services more than men- including Sure Start Centres and libraries as well as voluntary agency services like rape and domestic violence centres. Proposed changes to the NHS will inevitably have consequences for family planning; women’s choices and wellbeing. As well as locally provided services women use public transport more than men, particularly buses so increases in fares and possible reductions in subsidies will further isolate

Aim high at the Communist University of Britain

Anita Wright is a member of the Communist Party executive committee, active in the anti cuts campaign and NUT delegate to Lambeth TUC

London 25-27 November 2011

Valentina Tereshkova first woman in space

Feminist, secular, republican, socialist?

Join Britain’s revolutionary party of working class power name address

post code phone

email

Return to Communist Party 23 Coombe Road London CRO 1BD

www.morningstaronline.co.uk

Communists at the TUC women’s conference

women, particularly pensioners, the majority of whom are women.

This is why women must be in the forefront of the anti-cuts campaigns. We need to get active, get organised and get even with a Government that is determined to destroy the hard won rights of women and working people in order to maximise the profits of their friends in banking and big business.

HHHH

www.21stcenturymanifesto.wordpress.com

by Anita Halpin

The trade union conference season starts here and what better company could anyone wish for – sisters united to fight in defence of trade union rights and equality in a conference where there are few hierarchies and proper respect for lay members.

And we need to be united in the face of the onslaught that has been let lose on working women and men by this cutshappy coalition.

Cuts in funding and staffing that are so drastic that they will cause lasting and irreversible damage to health, education and welfare services. Cuts that will condemn more and more to poverty and ill health.

Do I exaggerate? I do not!

Latest figures from Save the Children estimate that 1.6 million children live in poverty in this country. And isn’t it ironic that while London is spending billions on tarting up the city for the Olympics, the two poorest areas in the country –Tower Hamlets with 27% severe poverty and Hackney with 22% –are neighbouring boroughs to Stratford, home to the Olympic site.

London is fast emerging as the ‘tuberculosis capital of western Europe’ An article published in the medical journal Lancet last month reveals that London is fast emerging as the ‘tuberculosis capital of western Europe which, according to one commentator, was attributable to ‘poor housing, bad ventilation, and overcrowding in Victorian

England [his words not mine]’.

And that hits the nail on the head – ‘Victorian’ England.

That's how far this government wants to turn the clock back. To a time when Britannia ruled the waves and the British Empire exploited over half the world; a time when poverty and disease were rife, when workers had hardly any rights, when women had no rights, and only the rich and propertied could vote.

That’s what the Con-Dems want, but it’s not what we want.

We want nothing to do with this government and it’s up to us to see that they are condemned to the dustbin of history.

That’s why the priority now is to build for an enormous turnout for the TUC demonstration in London on 26 March. The outcry against public spending cuts grows daily.

Anger is growing, not only because of the level of this first round of cuts but also because while banks continue to pay out billions of pounds in bonuses more and more people are realising that these cuts are not necessary and that it’s obviously a lie that ‘we’re all in it together’.

If we let them get away with it the government proposes to cut £203 billion by 2015. But this

H

March 2011

total could be raised in just a single year by taxing the rich and big business but also, of course, in subsequent years to swell the public purse and improve public services, save jobs and pay public sector workers a decent wage.

We’ve done the sums. It’s not just a case of the banks repaying us the £131 billion we loaned to bail them out. Add a one-off 20 per cent windfall tax on monopoly profits in banking, energy, retail food, armaments and pharmaceuticals to yield £16 billion. Not forgetting annual income from a 2% wealth tax (£78 billion); a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on City financial transactions (£20 billion) and a clamp on tax dodgers who steal £70 billion a year when they move money off shore.

It’s really quite simple, sisters; it’s just a case of redistibuting wealth by taxing those who bank roll the Conservative Party and no doubt make significant donations to the not-quite-so-liberal-Liberal Democrats.

HHHH Anita Halpin is a member of Communist Party executive and political committees and is the Party’s trade union coordinator

Morning Star Free at the point of use!

TUC Women’s conference participants can collect their daily paper of the left from the Morning Star stall, free courtesy of Unite, Unison and RMT www.morningstaronline.co.uk

2

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

HHHH

US workers ‘fighting for equality with Cubans’

by Carolyn Jones As we meet to discuss resistance to ConDem cuts to jobs, pay and services, thousands of workers in Wisconsin above, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan protest against the Republican bid to remove their right to bargain.

In the the ‘land of the free’, workers are having their collective voice at work silenced. And where the USA goes Britain follows. Threats to remove collective bargaining structures in education and health services are already being voiced by right wing wonks here.

Not so in Cuba. According to a timely new report from the Institute of Employment Rights (Workers in Cuba: unions and labour relations. A 2011 update*) the current restructuring of the Cuban economy and Cuban labour market has the trade union voice at the very heart of the consultation process.

So what’s been happening? In 2010, following the impact of the global economic crisis, a devastating hurricane and the ongoing illegal US embargo, Cuba introduced major labour market reforms into its economy. It announced a

programme to redeploy 500,000 workers out of the state sector, a step widely interpreted in the international media as a crisis measure by a government beating a rapid retreat from socialism. In Britain the Financial Times remarked that the labour market changes made Margaret Thatcher look like a leftist.

The truth of course is very different and Steve Ludlam , a Senior Lecturer in politics at the University of Sheffield and the author of the IER’s report, notes ...the key judgement must be about who benefits from the changes and who has power in the process. The changes (in Cuba) of the past decade....have been characterised by an extension of genuine participation by unions in employment policy development, by mass policy consultations with workers and by serious union efforts to strengthen worker participation in workplaces According to Ludlam, the changes implemented in 2010 came about as a consequence of debate and negotiation ...and not in a Thatcherite war on organised labour conducted by criminalising solidarity and defeating strikes Similarly, in contrast to the anti-union legislation here and the current attacks on collective bargaining in the USA, in Cuba The implementation of all key

aspects of labour relations legislation has been incorporated into the workplace collective bargaining agreement.

The law requires union and worker participation at all stages of development, stating that without workers’ agreement. “the system cannot be applied” Ludlam goes on to provide examples of union influence over labour market policy including – Union proposals relating to health and safety procedures that led to fatal accidents falling by half and workplace accidents by a quarter; proposals securing salary protection for those losing their jobs; consultations involving 1,500,000 individual trade unionists that lead to higher pensions and retirement at 60 for women and 65 for men.

The truth is that once again Cuba shines a progressive light and reminds us that another world is possible.

HHHH

Greetings to all sisters on International Women’s Day from the Communist Party

Women and Class

by Mary Davis £2.50 post free

Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute for Employment Rights

The Politics of Britain’s Economic Crisis

by John Foster £2.50 post free * IER report available at discounted price of £5.00 for WTUC delegates from www.ier.org.uk

Buy from CPB Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon CRO2 1BD www.communist-party.org.uk

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

Two charters, one campaign

International Women’s Day – a reflection

by Mary Davis

by Liz Payne-Ahmadi

There are nine motions at this year’s TUC women’s conference dealing directly with the cuts and their disproportionate effect on women.

UNISON warns that half a million public sector workers face redundancy. RMT points out that women bear the brunt of the austerity measures. Other unions make the same point whilst focussing on specific services, for example attacks on the provision of ante-natal services and rape crisis centres (CWU), school meals (GMB).

Other unions point to the draconian impact of the cuts on their own industries, for example PCS reveals that a shocking 72% of cuts in the civil service will be borne by women. GMB warns that pay cuts in local government will affect the lowest paid (mainly women) despite the fact that the government promised that it would exempt anyone earning less than £21,000 from the pay freeze – clearly another pre-election lie.

UCU points to the savage cuts in post-school education.

UNITE warns of the necessity for ‘eternal vigilance’ and welcome is their fulsome support for the Women’s Charter.

Policy decisions are welcome; but in the light of the most savage assault on working conditions, jobs, pay and the welfare state that any of us have ever witnessed, let alone imagined: the question arises ‘what is to be done’?

There is a plethora of anti cuts groups, but only two have substantial trade union support.

The Charter for Women was founded in 2003 not specifically to fight the cuts but to advance the women’s agenda in society,

at work and in the trade union movement. It has numerous trade union affiliates at national level.

The Peoples’ Charter was founded in 2008. Like the original 19th century charter, it has six demands (presented here in an abbreviated form see www.thepeoplescharter.org for full version) 1 A fair economy for a fairer Britain.

2 More and better jobs.

3 Decent homes for all.

4 Protect and improve our public services – no cuts.

5 Fairness and Justice. Enforce equal pay for women. End racism and discrimination in all its forms. No scape-goating of migrant workers.

6 Build a secure and sustainable future for all. End the cost of war in blood and money.

The Peoples’ Charter was adopted by the TUC in 2009 and by UNITE in 2010. It is clear from the motions cited above that working women and women in the labour movement must be a key element in any anti cuts campaigning. So far this has not happened. This is why we must ensure that the demands of both charters, already the property of the trade union movement are acted upon together.

However this also means that the demands must find resonance at a local level and not be confined to sterile conferences (the TUC Women’s Conference excepted!)

HHHH Mary Davis is a leading labour movement historian. A UCU member and leading communist she served on the TUC Women’s Committee and chaired the 2010 TUC Women’s Conference

The United Nations’ report The World’s Women, published last October, made sobering reading. The picture of women it portrayed is still alarmingly bleak.

We are, in general, poor and vulnerable and, in many places, isolated, overburdened and frequently unable to access the most basic of services.

We are also without voice.

Less than 20% of parliamentary seats worldwide are held by women. Only 11 of the 192 heads of state and 13 CEOs of the 500 largest corporations are female. This is reflected too at every level in local government and organisation.

But low visibility of women in public life is hardly surprising, given the barriers we face.

Violence against women – physical, sexual, psychological and economic – is ‘a universal phenomenon’. Women still do twice as much work as men, much of it domestic and unpaid.

The gender pay gap too is almost universal. The majority of the 72 million children in the world not receiving primary education are girls and two thirds of the 774 million who cannot read or write are women.

Almost 80% of the world’s 27 million refugees are women and children. The majority of those in Africa and the Middle East with HIV/Aids are women and, in some parts of the developing world, pregnancy and childbirth still carry a high risk of death or permanent injury.

All this, of course, is inexcusable. The world has the knowledge, science, technology, medicine and resources to provide health care, food, clean water, education and a decent standard of living for all its

3

population. We know that what stands in the way is the profitseeking and greed of capitalists and their corrupt and crisisridden system. The super rich cannot reproduce corporate and individual wealth in a just and peaceful world.

International Women’s Day (IWD) has always provided an opportunity for us to think about these things and, as we both celebrate and commemorate more than a century of women’s heroic struggle since we first marked the day, we know for sure that there is an alternative for which to fight and win. At this time we remember the heroism of our sisters across the world, facing arrest, torture, imprisonment and execution for speaking up for this.

This year we have already seen women in Sudan attacked for protesting at segregation in professional life and female journalists arrested and imprisoned for no more than covering their story. We have seen the women of Iran again come to the streets in thousands to claim a free and democratic future and campaign leader, Zahra Rahnavard, arrested in Tehran on 28 February, her whereabouts unknown. And we have seen the multitude of Egyptian and Tunisian women, young and old, veiled and unveiled, standing for all to see, firm and persistent day after day for a future without poverty, without corruption and without dictatorship. They are an inspiration. They show that we together can challenge our oppression, change every dismal statistic and build a just, democratic and peaceful future for us all.

HHHH Liz Payne-Ahmadi is the Communist Party’s women’s organiser

2

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

HHHH

US workers ‘fighting for equality with Cubans’

by Carolyn Jones As we meet to discuss resistance to ConDem cuts to jobs, pay and services, thousands of workers in Wisconsin above, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan protest against the Republican bid to remove their right to bargain.

In the the ‘land of the free’, workers are having their collective voice at work silenced. And where the USA goes Britain follows. Threats to remove collective bargaining structures in education and health services are already being voiced by right wing wonks here.

Not so in Cuba. According to a timely new report from the Institute of Employment Rights (Workers in Cuba: unions and labour relations. A 2011 update*) the current restructuring of the Cuban economy and Cuban labour market has the trade union voice at the very heart of the consultation process.

So what’s been happening? In 2010, following the impact of the global economic crisis, a devastating hurricane and the ongoing illegal US embargo, Cuba introduced major labour market reforms into its economy. It announced a

programme to redeploy 500,000 workers out of the state sector, a step widely interpreted in the international media as a crisis measure by a government beating a rapid retreat from socialism. In Britain the Financial Times remarked that the labour market changes made Margaret Thatcher look like a leftist.

The truth of course is very different and Steve Ludlam , a Senior Lecturer in politics at the University of Sheffield and the author of the IER’s report, notes ...the key judgement must be about who benefits from the changes and who has power in the process. The changes (in Cuba) of the past decade....have been characterised by an extension of genuine participation by unions in employment policy development, by mass policy consultations with workers and by serious union efforts to strengthen worker participation in workplaces According to Ludlam, the changes implemented in 2010 came about as a consequence of debate and negotiation ...and not in a Thatcherite war on organised labour conducted by criminalising solidarity and defeating strikes Similarly, in contrast to the anti-union legislation here and the current attacks on collective bargaining in the USA, in Cuba The implementation of all key

aspects of labour relations legislation has been incorporated into the workplace collective bargaining agreement.

The law requires union and worker participation at all stages of development, stating that without workers’ agreement. “the system cannot be applied” Ludlam goes on to provide examples of union influence over labour market policy including – Union proposals relating to health and safety procedures that led to fatal accidents falling by half and workplace accidents by a quarter; proposals securing salary protection for those losing their jobs; consultations involving 1,500,000 individual trade unionists that lead to higher pensions and retirement at 60 for women and 65 for men.

The truth is that once again Cuba shines a progressive light and reminds us that another world is possible.

HHHH

Greetings to all sisters on International Women’s Day from the Communist Party

Women and Class

by Mary Davis £2.50 post free

Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute for Employment Rights

The Politics of Britain’s Economic Crisis

by John Foster £2.50 post free * IER report available at discounted price of £5.00 for WTUC delegates from www.ier.org.uk

Buy from CPB Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon CRO2 1BD www.communist-party.org.uk

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

Two charters, one campaign

International Women’s Day – a reflection

by Mary Davis

by Liz Payne-Ahmadi

There are nine motions at this year’s TUC women’s conference dealing directly with the cuts and their disproportionate effect on women.

UNISON warns that half a million public sector workers face redundancy. RMT points out that women bear the brunt of the austerity measures. Other unions make the same point whilst focussing on specific services, for example attacks on the provision of ante-natal services and rape crisis centres (CWU), school meals (GMB).

Other unions point to the draconian impact of the cuts on their own industries, for example PCS reveals that a shocking 72% of cuts in the civil service will be borne by women. GMB warns that pay cuts in local government will affect the lowest paid (mainly women) despite the fact that the government promised that it would exempt anyone earning less than £21,000 from the pay freeze – clearly another pre-election lie.

UCU points to the savage cuts in post-school education.

UNITE warns of the necessity for ‘eternal vigilance’ and welcome is their fulsome support for the Women’s Charter.

Policy decisions are welcome; but in the light of the most savage assault on working conditions, jobs, pay and the welfare state that any of us have ever witnessed, let alone imagined: the question arises ‘what is to be done’?

There is a plethora of anti cuts groups, but only two have substantial trade union support.

The Charter for Women was founded in 2003 not specifically to fight the cuts but to advance the women’s agenda in society,

at work and in the trade union movement. It has numerous trade union affiliates at national level.

The Peoples’ Charter was founded in 2008. Like the original 19th century charter, it has six demands (presented here in an abbreviated form see www.thepeoplescharter.org for full version) 1 A fair economy for a fairer Britain.

2 More and better jobs.

3 Decent homes for all.

4 Protect and improve our public services – no cuts.

5 Fairness and Justice. Enforce equal pay for women. End racism and discrimination in all its forms. No scape-goating of migrant workers.

6 Build a secure and sustainable future for all. End the cost of war in blood and money.

The Peoples’ Charter was adopted by the TUC in 2009 and by UNITE in 2010. It is clear from the motions cited above that working women and women in the labour movement must be a key element in any anti cuts campaigning. So far this has not happened. This is why we must ensure that the demands of both charters, already the property of the trade union movement are acted upon together.

However this also means that the demands must find resonance at a local level and not be confined to sterile conferences (the TUC Women’s Conference excepted!)

HHHH Mary Davis is a leading labour movement historian. A UCU member and leading communist she served on the TUC Women’s Committee and chaired the 2010 TUC Women’s Conference

The United Nations’ report The World’s Women, published last October, made sobering reading. The picture of women it portrayed is still alarmingly bleak.

We are, in general, poor and vulnerable and, in many places, isolated, overburdened and frequently unable to access the most basic of services.

We are also without voice.

Less than 20% of parliamentary seats worldwide are held by women. Only 11 of the 192 heads of state and 13 CEOs of the 500 largest corporations are female. This is reflected too at every level in local government and organisation.

But low visibility of women in public life is hardly surprising, given the barriers we face.

Violence against women – physical, sexual, psychological and economic – is ‘a universal phenomenon’. Women still do twice as much work as men, much of it domestic and unpaid.

The gender pay gap too is almost universal. The majority of the 72 million children in the world not receiving primary education are girls and two thirds of the 774 million who cannot read or write are women.

Almost 80% of the world’s 27 million refugees are women and children. The majority of those in Africa and the Middle East with HIV/Aids are women and, in some parts of the developing world, pregnancy and childbirth still carry a high risk of death or permanent injury.

All this, of course, is inexcusable. The world has the knowledge, science, technology, medicine and resources to provide health care, food, clean water, education and a decent standard of living for all its

3

population. We know that what stands in the way is the profitseeking and greed of capitalists and their corrupt and crisisridden system. The super rich cannot reproduce corporate and individual wealth in a just and peaceful world.

International Women’s Day (IWD) has always provided an opportunity for us to think about these things and, as we both celebrate and commemorate more than a century of women’s heroic struggle since we first marked the day, we know for sure that there is an alternative for which to fight and win. At this time we remember the heroism of our sisters across the world, facing arrest, torture, imprisonment and execution for speaking up for this.

This year we have already seen women in Sudan attacked for protesting at segregation in professional life and female journalists arrested and imprisoned for no more than covering their story. We have seen the women of Iran again come to the streets in thousands to claim a free and democratic future and campaign leader, Zahra Rahnavard, arrested in Tehran on 28 February, her whereabouts unknown. And we have seen the multitude of Egyptian and Tunisian women, young and old, veiled and unveiled, standing for all to see, firm and persistent day after day for a future without poverty, without corruption and without dictatorship. They are an inspiration. They show that we together can challenge our oppression, change every dismal statistic and build a just, democratic and peaceful future for us all.

HHHH Liz Payne-Ahmadi is the Communist Party’s women’s organiser

4

Unity!

Unity! TUC Women’s Conference 2011

Women bear the brunt of the cuts

by Anita Wright

On the 6 December last year the Fawcett Society went to the High Court to challenge the legality of Chancellor George Osborne’s proposal to immediately cut public spending by over £18 billion.

The Fawcett Society argued that this would have a disproportionate impact on women and that the Con-Dem government had failed in their legal duty to conduct a gender equality assessment.

Mr Justice Ouseley concluded that the Government had failed to adequately consider the impact of its decisions on women but decided not to grant a judicial review preferring to call on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to undertake a full assessment of government actions.

Such is the contempt that this Government has for working people, and women in particular, that when it came to the Comprehensive Spending Review they ignored their own report on gender impact and slashed public spending

anyway. With anticipated cuts of £113 billion in 2014-15 and £128 billion per year by 201516, we face the biggest ideological and political attack seen for generations with women bearing the brunt of the cuts.

Women are disproportionally affected in three ways: as workers, as carers and as service users.

With women making up over 65% of public sector workers, they will be the biggest losers when it comes to job cuts. The TUC estimates that of the proposed 500,000 public sector jobs to be axed, 325,000 of those losing their job will be women. In 2009 Unison estimated that around 1million public sector workers, most of whom are women were paid less than £7 per hour. The two-year pay freezes being imposed on the public sector will mean that women will suffer most.

February 2011 figures also show that, in the last year, the number of women claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance has risen by 12%.

The number of women aged 2549 on JSA is now at its highest since 1997.

With women making up 90% of lone parents and 53% of housing benefit claimants, changes to the benefit system including the abolition of the £190 Health in Pregnancy Grant and Baby Element of the Tax Credits worth a maximum of £545; a 10% cut in childcare costs in Working Tax Credit,

www.communist-party.org.uk www.solidnet.org

three-year freeze on the value of Child Benefit, clearly puts the lie to a Government that calls itself family friendly.

Women are in the front line of Government attacks because they use these services more than men- including Sure Start Centres and libraries as well as voluntary agency services like rape and domestic violence centres. Proposed changes to the NHS will inevitably have consequences for family planning; women’s choices and wellbeing. As well as locally provided services women use public transport more than men, particularly buses so increases in fares and possible reductions in subsidies will further isolate

Aim high at the Communist University of Britain

Anita Wright is a member of the Communist Party executive committee, active in the anti cuts campaign and NUT delegate to Lambeth TUC

London 25-27 November 2011

Valentina Tereshkova first woman in space

Feminist, secular, republican, socialist?

Join Britain’s revolutionary party of working class power name address

post code phone

email

Return to Communist Party 23 Coombe Road London CRO 1BD

www.morningstaronline.co.uk

Communists at the TUC women’s conference

women, particularly pensioners, the majority of whom are women.

This is why women must be in the forefront of the anti-cuts campaigns. We need to get active, get organised and get even with a Government that is determined to destroy the hard won rights of women and working people in order to maximise the profits of their friends in banking and big business.

HHHH

www.21stcenturymanifesto.wordpress.com

by Anita Halpin

The trade union conference season starts here and what better company could anyone wish for – sisters united to fight in defence of trade union rights and equality in a conference where there are few hierarchies and proper respect for lay members.

And we need to be united in the face of the onslaught that has been let lose on working women and men by this cutshappy coalition.

Cuts in funding and staffing that are so drastic that they will cause lasting and irreversible damage to health, education and welfare services. Cuts that will condemn more and more to poverty and ill health.

Do I exaggerate? I do not!

Latest figures from Save the Children estimate that 1.6 million children live in poverty in this country. And isn’t it ironic that while London is spending billions on tarting up the city for the Olympics, the two poorest areas in the country –Tower Hamlets with 27% severe poverty and Hackney with 22% –are neighbouring boroughs to Stratford, home to the Olympic site.

London is fast emerging as the ‘tuberculosis capital of western Europe’ An article published in the medical journal Lancet last month reveals that London is fast emerging as the ‘tuberculosis capital of western Europe which, according to one commentator, was attributable to ‘poor housing, bad ventilation, and overcrowding in Victorian

England [his words not mine]’.

And that hits the nail on the head – ‘Victorian’ England.

That's how far this government wants to turn the clock back. To a time when Britannia ruled the waves and the British Empire exploited over half the world; a time when poverty and disease were rife, when workers had hardly any rights, when women had no rights, and only the rich and propertied could vote.

That’s what the Con-Dems want, but it’s not what we want.

We want nothing to do with this government and it’s up to us to see that they are condemned to the dustbin of history.

That’s why the priority now is to build for an enormous turnout for the TUC demonstration in London on 26 March. The outcry against public spending cuts grows daily.

Anger is growing, not only because of the level of this first round of cuts but also because while banks continue to pay out billions of pounds in bonuses more and more people are realising that these cuts are not necessary and that it’s obviously a lie that ‘we’re all in it together’.

If we let them get away with it the government proposes to cut £203 billion by 2015. But this

H

March 2011

total could be raised in just a single year by taxing the rich and big business but also, of course, in subsequent years to swell the public purse and improve public services, save jobs and pay public sector workers a decent wage.

We’ve done the sums. It’s not just a case of the banks repaying us the £131 billion we loaned to bail them out. Add a one-off 20 per cent windfall tax on monopoly profits in banking, energy, retail food, armaments and pharmaceuticals to yield £16 billion. Not forgetting annual income from a 2% wealth tax (£78 billion); a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on City financial transactions (£20 billion) and a clamp on tax dodgers who steal £70 billion a year when they move money off shore.

It’s really quite simple, sisters; it’s just a case of redistibuting wealth by taxing those who bank roll the Conservative Party and no doubt make significant donations to the not-quite-so-liberal-Liberal Democrats.

HHHH Anita Halpin is a member of Communist Party executive and political committees and is the Party’s trade union coordinator

Morning Star Free at the point of use!

TUC Women’s conference participants can collect their daily paper of the left from the Morning Star stall, free courtesy of Unite, Unison and RMT www.morningstaronline.co.uk