When you thought the cuts were bad enough we are told today there is more on their way as this government of millionaires looks to continue to make ordinary people pay for a crisis they did not create at a much faster and harder rate than before.
Danny Alexander is shaking up Whitehall spending rules
"In an environment of economic uncertainty, with ongoing instability in the eurozone, the UK's large deficit remains a crucial economic vulnerability. It remains a clear and present danger to stability," he will say.
New rules, which will be enforced from this year on, have been drawn up by finance directors in Whitehall and are aimed at improving financial management.
Mr. Alexander will say they are "rules that demonstrate the collective determination of government to ensure that never again will our nation's finances be allowed to get into such a mess".
He will insist that departments' delegated responsibility for spending cannot be "an excuse to hide information, close the books, or weaken financial management".
"For too long financial management in Government has been stifled by poor information sharing and poor incentives. That has to change," the Cabinet minister will say.
"From now on, all departments must monitor and share spending information with the Treasury on a monthly basis. And that data must be consistent."
In an environment of economic uncertainty, with ongoing instability in the eurozone, the UK's large deficit remains a crucial economic vulnerability. It remains a clear and present danger to stability.
Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander
The Treasury kept central reserves small in the spending review so departments could have the most money possible, which means departments themselves have to have a buffer in case of any problems.
Under the new rules, they will have to identify around 5% of their resource budget which could be used if new "pressures" emerge or new policies need funding.
Mr Alexander will stress that the changes are not a "small tweak to the Whitehall machine".
"They are another signal of our unwavering determination to deliver the fiscal consolidation we promised," he is to say.
"It is this focus on delivery that is the cornerstone of our country's credibility. Credibility, let us not forget, which is delivering the record low interest rates that are benefiting millions of families across the UK."
This all sounds very like a hard line austerity or nothing kind of speech. If this doesn’t wake the trade unions up to get up off their knees and fight back I can’t see what will. This is a huge threat to our standard of living. With the original cuts still only about 9% into their 5 year programme things are going to get a hell of a lot worse. Some people still think amazingly that this is just a short term measure to see our finances back on track but I personally believe we are being locked into permanent austerity with this.
This should be a warning shot to the anti cuts movement and the trade unions to prepare for battle. A bigger more concerted battle this time with the willingness to build for a general strike with public and private sectors. We can’t just simply lie down and let this happen we will have no choice but to fight back I feel. More cuts are not the answer with 120 billion going evaded in tax each year the vast majority of austerity cuts could be avoided.
With an investment in public services and a mass house building programme we would not have to endure huge spending cuts. They are not savings at all they cost us more in the long run so do beware of the language these capitalist politicians use.
It is also clear still we need a party that will fight for our interests a new workers party that will reject austerity once and for all. This can only come about by people having the heart to feel ready to build a new party out of the ash’s of a capitalist apocalypse .
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Showing posts with label Danny Alexander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danny Alexander. Show all posts
Monday, 23 April 2012
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Con-dems public sector pensions attack, brutal class warfare must be fought
The government is attempting to steal £2.8 billion from public sector pensions in Britain. This is a brutal act of class warfare directed against millions of mainly low-paid workers.
Attempting to prosecute it is a tiny ruling elite, who despise the public sector and those who deliver the vital services that bind our communities together.
Propaganda about public sector "gold-plated" pensions and conditions at the expense of everyone else, especially private sector workers, is the ideological 'justification' for a state-instigated hate campaign against public sector workers.
PCS members have voted for action alongside three education unions on 30 June. These four unions have three quarters of a million members.
This will be the first major coordinated industrial action against the Tory-led coalition's cuts and privatisation programme.
PCS members have voted not just for a day of action nor to only defend pensions but for a programme of discontinuous action which will allow the national union to coordinate action to defend jobs, pay and conditions, which are all under attack now.
Strategy
This strategy will be a significant element in building for mass coordinated industrial action in the autumn.
The National Association of Head Teachers is the latest union to announce it will also ballot its members about striking over pension cuts. Potentially there could be between three and five million workers striking against the coalition cuts in the autumn.
Pensions are the great unifying factor in the public sector. Every single worker will suffer appalling detriment if the government's plans are realised.
The plans are based on the report by anti-union ex-Labour minister John Hutton, a truly despicable creature, awash with lucrative sponsorships for services rendered to corporate interests.
The civil service has operated on an unwritten contract that job security and reasonable pensions, which are deferred wages, were the trade-off for low wages.
The average civil service pension for full service, excluding the tiny percentage of high earners, is £4,200 a year.
Hard-working public sector workers are the victims, not the cause of the economic crisis. We are now being asked to pay again, with what is effectively a tax on public sector pensions to pay off the deficit caused by the bankers and their system.
Victims, not the cause
The proposals will mean members will be expected to double or treble their contributions (the value of an extra day's work a month), work until age 68, and accept cuts of 20-50% in the value of pensions.
Our pensions' value has already been reduced by 15-25% because of the un-agreed re-indexing of pensions and benefits. PCS and other unions have mounted a legal challenge on this.
But the attack is not about dry statistics, it represents a shocking assault on living standards of some of the lowest paid workers in society who are also facing pay freezes, savage assaults on conditions, privatisation and the threat of job losses.
Even the Tories have voiced concern that the changes to contributions will lead to workers simply opting out of the scheme with horrendous implications for the future of pension provision.
This has been cited as part of the reason for Lib Dem treasury minister Danny Alexander's proposal to taper the increase in pension contributions.
Public sector workers now face a life of low pay followed by an impoverished old age, and they will be expected, as taxpayers, to fund the means-tested benefits necessary to support increasing numbers living below the poverty line.
Poverty
The official poverty line is £170 a week, the state pension is £102 a week; reduced occupational pensions will increase the number of pensioners in poverty - currently 2.5 million. 3.5 million pensioners are in fuel poverty.
In Germany pensions are 70% of average earnings, though set to fall. Even in the USA, for 40 years of work, social security provides 40% of previous earnings.
In France, 12% of GDP is spent on pensions, 10% in Germany, but in Britain, a measly 6%.
The net cost of paying public sector pensions in 2009/10 was a little under £4 billion. The cost of providing tax relief to the 1% who earn more than £150,000 is more than twice as much.
The total cost of providing tax relief to all higher rate taxpayers, on their private pensions, is more than five times as much.
There is an all-out campaign to divide public and private sector workers by claiming that pensions for the former are at the expense of the latter. In reality many households are comprised of people working in both sectors; the idea that low paid private sector workers are supportive of the cuts in other family members' pensions is garbage.
Workers won't buy the argument there should be an equality of misery.
Companies took pension 'holidays'
The removal of decent pension provision throughout the private sector was due to the fact that in the 1980s and 1990s companies took pension 'holidays' that left schemes under-funded.
When legislation was introduced to guarantee levels of funding, it increased the rate of pension fund closures as companies were unprepared to fund schemes at shareholders' expense.
The loss of these schemes did not, during a period of comparative economic boom, save jobs, guarantee pay rises or help to avoid financial meltdown in the private sector.
The only beneficiaries were the bosses and shareholders.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka rightly describes current negotiations with Cabinet Minister Francis Maude as a "farce". Maude wants the unions to go into sector bargaining without any compromise on the core national issues of increased contributions, cuts in the value of schemes and the rise in the working age.
Maude and Alexander clearly aim to sow division by putting the unions at each other's throats by fighting over the distribution of the cuts rather than opposing them outright.
Key principles
But PCS is adamant that these key principles must be collectively opposed and negotiated on, before sector talks take place.
Already, under the threat of strike action Alexander has announced that workers earning less than £15,000 won't have any increase in contributions. But this must be confirmed in negotiations.
Those earning less than £18,000 will have their contributions capped at 1.5%. But only 4% of PCS members earn less than £15,000 and across the public sector it is 1%.
And these low-paid workers will still suffer the increased retirement age and all the other aspects of the attack.
Workers earning more than £18,000 could have their contributions raised by up to 5%. The increases will be phased in over three years from next April.
This is clearly an attempt to divide the opposition and must be resisted.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the government was "hopelessly mismanaging" the pension issue. But Labour also attempted to increase the pension age in 2005 but was thwarted by the threat of coordinated public sector strike action.
Echoing the shameful Labour line that while the coalition is "cutting too deep and too quickly" cuts are nevertheless 'necessary' and 'inevitable', some union leaders signalled concessions upfront.
The coalition government is now trying to tempt them into an unholy alliance against PCS and other unions by isolating the 'militants' who, according to Alexander "seem hell bent on premature strike action".
The position must be unequivocal - no cuts or privatisation. Accepting the need for cuts is the road to division and defeat.
On pensions, we are facing organised theft on a huge scale by a government of millionaires with no mandate - economic terrorism against the vast majority waged to increase the obscene wealth of a tiny minority who place profit before people.
We face a defining battle for our movement. Real leadership is required, based on a strategy of no cuts, and no concessions to pension robbery.
We must build the kind of widespread industrial action capable of defeating and bringing down this government.
For a newly-qualified teacher who goes into the profession at 23, doesn't take any promotions and retires at 65 on UPS3, the figures suggest that the government's best offer cuts his/her pension by 40%. Their worst offer cuts it by 52%!
One PCS member in Swansea was staggered to find he would lose £160,000 under the new arrangements. This is a typical, not extreme, example.
Attempting to prosecute it is a tiny ruling elite, who despise the public sector and those who deliver the vital services that bind our communities together.
Propaganda about public sector "gold-plated" pensions and conditions at the expense of everyone else, especially private sector workers, is the ideological 'justification' for a state-instigated hate campaign against public sector workers.
PCS members have voted for action alongside three education unions on 30 June. These four unions have three quarters of a million members.
This will be the first major coordinated industrial action against the Tory-led coalition's cuts and privatisation programme.
PCS members have voted not just for a day of action nor to only defend pensions but for a programme of discontinuous action which will allow the national union to coordinate action to defend jobs, pay and conditions, which are all under attack now.
Strategy
This strategy will be a significant element in building for mass coordinated industrial action in the autumn.
The National Association of Head Teachers is the latest union to announce it will also ballot its members about striking over pension cuts. Potentially there could be between three and five million workers striking against the coalition cuts in the autumn.
Pensions are the great unifying factor in the public sector. Every single worker will suffer appalling detriment if the government's plans are realised.
The plans are based on the report by anti-union ex-Labour minister John Hutton, a truly despicable creature, awash with lucrative sponsorships for services rendered to corporate interests.
The civil service has operated on an unwritten contract that job security and reasonable pensions, which are deferred wages, were the trade-off for low wages.
The average civil service pension for full service, excluding the tiny percentage of high earners, is £4,200 a year.
Hard-working public sector workers are the victims, not the cause of the economic crisis. We are now being asked to pay again, with what is effectively a tax on public sector pensions to pay off the deficit caused by the bankers and their system.
Victims, not the cause
The proposals will mean members will be expected to double or treble their contributions (the value of an extra day's work a month), work until age 68, and accept cuts of 20-50% in the value of pensions.
Our pensions' value has already been reduced by 15-25% because of the un-agreed re-indexing of pensions and benefits. PCS and other unions have mounted a legal challenge on this.
But the attack is not about dry statistics, it represents a shocking assault on living standards of some of the lowest paid workers in society who are also facing pay freezes, savage assaults on conditions, privatisation and the threat of job losses.
Even the Tories have voiced concern that the changes to contributions will lead to workers simply opting out of the scheme with horrendous implications for the future of pension provision.
This has been cited as part of the reason for Lib Dem treasury minister Danny Alexander's proposal to taper the increase in pension contributions.
Public sector workers now face a life of low pay followed by an impoverished old age, and they will be expected, as taxpayers, to fund the means-tested benefits necessary to support increasing numbers living below the poverty line.
Poverty
The official poverty line is £170 a week, the state pension is £102 a week; reduced occupational pensions will increase the number of pensioners in poverty - currently 2.5 million. 3.5 million pensioners are in fuel poverty.
In Germany pensions are 70% of average earnings, though set to fall. Even in the USA, for 40 years of work, social security provides 40% of previous earnings.
In France, 12% of GDP is spent on pensions, 10% in Germany, but in Britain, a measly 6%.
The net cost of paying public sector pensions in 2009/10 was a little under £4 billion. The cost of providing tax relief to the 1% who earn more than £150,000 is more than twice as much.
The total cost of providing tax relief to all higher rate taxpayers, on their private pensions, is more than five times as much.
There is an all-out campaign to divide public and private sector workers by claiming that pensions for the former are at the expense of the latter. In reality many households are comprised of people working in both sectors; the idea that low paid private sector workers are supportive of the cuts in other family members' pensions is garbage.
Workers won't buy the argument there should be an equality of misery.
Companies took pension 'holidays'
The removal of decent pension provision throughout the private sector was due to the fact that in the 1980s and 1990s companies took pension 'holidays' that left schemes under-funded.
When legislation was introduced to guarantee levels of funding, it increased the rate of pension fund closures as companies were unprepared to fund schemes at shareholders' expense.
The loss of these schemes did not, during a period of comparative economic boom, save jobs, guarantee pay rises or help to avoid financial meltdown in the private sector.
The only beneficiaries were the bosses and shareholders.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka rightly describes current negotiations with Cabinet Minister Francis Maude as a "farce". Maude wants the unions to go into sector bargaining without any compromise on the core national issues of increased contributions, cuts in the value of schemes and the rise in the working age.
Maude and Alexander clearly aim to sow division by putting the unions at each other's throats by fighting over the distribution of the cuts rather than opposing them outright.
Key principles
But PCS is adamant that these key principles must be collectively opposed and negotiated on, before sector talks take place.
Already, under the threat of strike action Alexander has announced that workers earning less than £15,000 won't have any increase in contributions. But this must be confirmed in negotiations.
Those earning less than £18,000 will have their contributions capped at 1.5%. But only 4% of PCS members earn less than £15,000 and across the public sector it is 1%.
And these low-paid workers will still suffer the increased retirement age and all the other aspects of the attack.
Workers earning more than £18,000 could have their contributions raised by up to 5%. The increases will be phased in over three years from next April.
This is clearly an attempt to divide the opposition and must be resisted.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the government was "hopelessly mismanaging" the pension issue. But Labour also attempted to increase the pension age in 2005 but was thwarted by the threat of coordinated public sector strike action.
Echoing the shameful Labour line that while the coalition is "cutting too deep and too quickly" cuts are nevertheless 'necessary' and 'inevitable', some union leaders signalled concessions upfront.
The coalition government is now trying to tempt them into an unholy alliance against PCS and other unions by isolating the 'militants' who, according to Alexander "seem hell bent on premature strike action".
The position must be unequivocal - no cuts or privatisation. Accepting the need for cuts is the road to division and defeat.
On pensions, we are facing organised theft on a huge scale by a government of millionaires with no mandate - economic terrorism against the vast majority waged to increase the obscene wealth of a tiny minority who place profit before people.
We face a defining battle for our movement. Real leadership is required, based on a strategy of no cuts, and no concessions to pension robbery.
We must build the kind of widespread industrial action capable of defeating and bringing down this government.
For a newly-qualified teacher who goes into the profession at 23, doesn't take any promotions and retires at 65 on UPS3, the figures suggest that the government's best offer cuts his/her pension by 40%. Their worst offer cuts it by 52%!
One PCS member in Swansea was staggered to find he would lose £160,000 under the new arrangements. This is a typical, not extreme, example.
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