Last nights elections results showed a swing to labour from Tories and the lib dems. Labour has taken control of lots of new councils. But to me this is more of a vote against the Tories and the government than a vote for labours slow cuts policy to be honest.
You only have to look at the appalling turnout figures across the country typically between 20 and 30 percent. That is dreadful and says much for the current state of our democracy or excuse for a democracy in this country when so few people can be bothered to vote I think the time is nearly up for the major political parties out there offering you the same old crap served up with a different shade of tie on.
So will labour mount a stronger fight back at a local level against cuts ? I personally can’t see it more councillors and more labor run councils means nothing. When up till now all labour councils have happily passed on all Tory cuts handed to them without as much as a whimper there’s nothing to suggest this trend won’t continue. Of course I’d over it if a labour ran council did refuse to make the cuts but from those councillors who have already one has found himself expelled for daring to vote against the labour group and the other is still under investigation. So if any do and I really hope some do they will be in for a severe ticking off. The only voice for anti cuts will be TUSC still who unfortunately did not poll hugely or win big, but we weren’t expecting to. With a disgraceful media blackout of our campaigns we received reasonable votes in places unfortunately loosing out to the fact people who did vote largely voted for labour to give the Tories a kicking, this was their choice as at the moment they are still seen as the only opposition to the Tories wrongly in my view but there we go those illusions still hold strong in a lot of areas. But as the cuts begin to bite harder and harder and no fight back from labour councils is forthcoming parties like TUSC can get a better hearing I’d have thought with people finally seeing that labour when it comes down to it would do very little different to the Tories in power.
TUSC is well placed to expose labour for its hypocrisy and outright lies that it defends ordinary people TUSC rejects all cuts whoever is making them but when labour makes the cuts people will see the true face of the labour party and will be looking for an alternative.
Our ideas did get a good reception on the doorstep but unfortunately much like last year that isn’t translating into votes. That doesn’t mean to say we don’t have the support it just mans people are not yet rushing to the polling stations to affect change. They don’t believe in the system and well neither do we but we do at least offer an alternative to the cuts agenda of the main 3 parties.
Labour will not face up to the Tories and reject all the cuts for the simple reason as they do not see an alternative. They could be looking to tax the rich and collect the 120 billion which goes evaded and avoided every eyar but do we hear labour shouting about the rich ? No we don’t we hear them joining in with bashing the poor rhetoric and anti worker sentiment. Even last night on BBC question time Hariot Harman the deputy leader of the labour party could not even support public sector workers going on strike she said she hopes there isn’t a strike, well so do we and the government backs down but they wont so strike action is necessary and will be important to building the fight back again against the government and this rotten capitalist system where the poor aware being made to pay for a crisis not of their making.
These local elections results tell you something though that 68% of people are not voting and that those can be won over to voting for an alternative, a socialist alternative in years to come. As Marxists we see everything as a process and constantly changing. TUSC will stand again and again and again building our roots in the working class so next time people will know us and know our record of opposing all cuts and defending working class people wherever we can. Labour will be exposed mark my words their idea of slow cuts will do nothing to ease the pain on ordinary people at the bottom of society and one day all capitalist parties and ideas will be rejected once and for all.
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Showing posts with label public sector pensions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public sector pensions. Show all posts
Friday, 4 May 2012
Friday, 16 December 2011
No to any sell outs on pension reforms, demand TUC set next date for action
As i posted on the eve on November the 30th on this very same blog that the TUC must name the next date for escalated action of at least 24 hour strike action on a national scale. So far we have not heard anything on this front sadly. Untill yesterday where the TUC met to discuss the next way forward or not it seems.
On 15 December the TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) met for the first time since the magnificent 30 November public sector strike.
Disgracefully, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, argued that all of the trade unions should sign up to the government’s latest ‘heads of agreement’ on pensions, which would then allow Francis Maude to announce before Christmas that the dispute has been settled. This was met with outrage by many of the public sector trade unions present.
Not one of the central demands of public sector workers has been met. All public sector workers are still being told to work longer, pay more and get less.
The teaching unions NUT and NASUWT reported that they had been offered no serious concessions by the government, as did the civil servants’ union PCS, the Fire Brigades Union and representatives of workers in the NHS.
In local government the only concession is to delay the attacks on pensions until 2014, provided that local government unions promise to accept the pain without a fight when it comes.
Yet Dave Prentis – general secretary for Unison – the biggest union in health and local government – argued for accepting this rotten deal. Hundreds of thousands of Unison members who struck on 30 November will not agree.
30 November showed the potential power of the working class in Britain. We can force this weak, divided government to retreat, but only if the action is stepped up.
The leadership of the TUC and Unison were only forced to support N30 because of the pressure of rank and file trade unionists – now we need to do the same again.
At the PSLG, PCS demanded that the meeting name the day for the next day of national coordinated strike action.
In Scotland, Unison delegates have already unanimously proposed 25 January as the day of the next strike.
National Shop Stewards Network supporters need to pile on the pressure for the date of the next strike to be set before Christmas, and to take place in January.
We immediately need to:
■Flood the TUC and Unison leaderships with letters, resolutions and petitions of protest demanding that they do not sell out the pensions struggle and immediately set the date for a strike in January in coordination with the other public sector unions.
■Members of all other public sector unions to send letters, resolutions and petitions to their National Executives demanding that they set the date for a strike in January in coordination with the other unions.
■Organise a mass lobby of the next meeting of the TUC, which is taking place in early January.
On 15 December the TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) met for the first time since the magnificent 30 November public sector strike.
Disgracefully, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, argued that all of the trade unions should sign up to the government’s latest ‘heads of agreement’ on pensions, which would then allow Francis Maude to announce before Christmas that the dispute has been settled. This was met with outrage by many of the public sector trade unions present.
Not one of the central demands of public sector workers has been met. All public sector workers are still being told to work longer, pay more and get less.
The teaching unions NUT and NASUWT reported that they had been offered no serious concessions by the government, as did the civil servants’ union PCS, the Fire Brigades Union and representatives of workers in the NHS.
In local government the only concession is to delay the attacks on pensions until 2014, provided that local government unions promise to accept the pain without a fight when it comes.
Yet Dave Prentis – general secretary for Unison – the biggest union in health and local government – argued for accepting this rotten deal. Hundreds of thousands of Unison members who struck on 30 November will not agree.
30 November showed the potential power of the working class in Britain. We can force this weak, divided government to retreat, but only if the action is stepped up.
The leadership of the TUC and Unison were only forced to support N30 because of the pressure of rank and file trade unionists – now we need to do the same again.
At the PSLG, PCS demanded that the meeting name the day for the next day of national coordinated strike action.
In Scotland, Unison delegates have already unanimously proposed 25 January as the day of the next strike.
National Shop Stewards Network supporters need to pile on the pressure for the date of the next strike to be set before Christmas, and to take place in January.
We immediately need to:
■Flood the TUC and Unison leaderships with letters, resolutions and petitions of protest demanding that they do not sell out the pensions struggle and immediately set the date for a strike in January in coordination with the other public sector unions.
■Members of all other public sector unions to send letters, resolutions and petitions to their National Executives demanding that they set the date for a strike in January in coordination with the other unions.
■Organise a mass lobby of the next meeting of the TUC, which is taking place in early January.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Youth must join pensions struggle
Strike together as in France 2010
Article first published in issue no.685 of the socialist by
Jack Poole, Brighton University Socialist Students
The government and their friends in the media will always try, as they did in June, to spread division between workers and service users during strike action. It is important to cut across these lies with solidarity action and unity between young people and workers on strike.
Three quarters of a million teachers and civil servants took coordinated strike action in June against the government's decimation of public sector pension schemes.
This unity between students, young people and workers was shown last year in France, in the struggle against the pension reforms. With the Con-Dem coalition likely to face more strike action over pensions this autumn, it is important to analyse and draw lessons from struggles such as this.
Last October, President Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age saw a furious and enormous reaction from the French working class, with massive strikes and demonstrations - at the height of the movement, 3.5 million people demonstrated across the country.
A crucial turning point for the dispute was when young people and students began to take part in the struggle in a large and organised way. Ignoring the lies of Sarkozy's supporters and the right wing media who tried to re-assure young people that pension reform did not concern them, student strikes in solidarity with the workers helped shut hundreds of schools.
The idea that raising the retirement age does not affect young people is a downright lie used to divide the movement. For example, with one million young people unemployed in Britain, it is madness for the government to be forcing older workers to work for longer while these young people waste their talents on the dole queue.
Sarkozy revealed a lot when he was quoted as saying about the strikes, "school and college students...must be watched closely like milk on a stove."
Politicians like Sarkozy and Cameron are right to be frightened of a mass movement of youth and workers opposing their austerity measures! Such a movement would stand a real chance of stopping them and their cuts in their tracks.
Young people and students on their own do not carry the social weight to defeat governments, even weak ones such as the coalition in Britain. However, as last year's student movement in Britain showed, the energy and anger of a movement of young people can give confidence and inspire others in society to fight back. Three months after the last major student demonstration, half a million trade unionists marched through the streets of London.
Combined with the organised working class, which holds the power to make society grind to a halt, this kind of action would stand firmly in the way of the brutal austerity cuts of governments across Europe and beyond.
If more workers take coordinated strike action to defend their pensions, young people and students need to unite with them. We should take our solidarity to the picket lines but also organise walkouts at our schools, colleges and universities and join the protests and demonstrations taking place. Any blow against this government is a step towards a decent future for young people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article first published in issue no.685 of the socialist by
Jack Poole, Brighton University Socialist Students
The government and their friends in the media will always try, as they did in June, to spread division between workers and service users during strike action. It is important to cut across these lies with solidarity action and unity between young people and workers on strike.
Three quarters of a million teachers and civil servants took coordinated strike action in June against the government's decimation of public sector pension schemes.
This unity between students, young people and workers was shown last year in France, in the struggle against the pension reforms. With the Con-Dem coalition likely to face more strike action over pensions this autumn, it is important to analyse and draw lessons from struggles such as this.
Last October, President Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age saw a furious and enormous reaction from the French working class, with massive strikes and demonstrations - at the height of the movement, 3.5 million people demonstrated across the country.
A crucial turning point for the dispute was when young people and students began to take part in the struggle in a large and organised way. Ignoring the lies of Sarkozy's supporters and the right wing media who tried to re-assure young people that pension reform did not concern them, student strikes in solidarity with the workers helped shut hundreds of schools.
The idea that raising the retirement age does not affect young people is a downright lie used to divide the movement. For example, with one million young people unemployed in Britain, it is madness for the government to be forcing older workers to work for longer while these young people waste their talents on the dole queue.
Sarkozy revealed a lot when he was quoted as saying about the strikes, "school and college students...must be watched closely like milk on a stove."
Politicians like Sarkozy and Cameron are right to be frightened of a mass movement of youth and workers opposing their austerity measures! Such a movement would stand a real chance of stopping them and their cuts in their tracks.
Young people and students on their own do not carry the social weight to defeat governments, even weak ones such as the coalition in Britain. However, as last year's student movement in Britain showed, the energy and anger of a movement of young people can give confidence and inspire others in society to fight back. Three months after the last major student demonstration, half a million trade unionists marched through the streets of London.
Combined with the organised working class, which holds the power to make society grind to a halt, this kind of action would stand firmly in the way of the brutal austerity cuts of governments across Europe and beyond.
If more workers take coordinated strike action to defend their pensions, young people and students need to unite with them. We should take our solidarity to the picket lines but also organise walkouts at our schools, colleges and universities and join the protests and demonstrations taking place. Any blow against this government is a step towards a decent future for young people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 30 June 2011
1st wave of co-ordinated strike action, today must be just the start
SO as the pickets and the plackards are taken down from todays successful strike action taken by the PCS, UCU, NUT and ATL unions in joint co-ordinated strike action where we have seen up to 750,000 workers out on industrial action be it on a picket line a rally or not working therefore withdrawing their labour.
I dont think we can emphasise enough how big today may prove to be in the months and years to come. Today was the start of something big. Where the public sector trade unions on behalf of the working class stood up to this con-dem government and said no we will not take your cuts and robberies laying down.
For the first time in many years the biggest show of the labour movement moved into action.
Many doubted it after march 26th thinking oh no these unions havent got the fight and wont organise anything now.
Wrong
They did and many congratulations has to go to those unions who did work so dam hard and i know many of their activists did to get as many out today as possible to oppose this vicious attack on our living standards in many years.
What today has shown us is that when we organise, when we come together and unite we can defeat anyone.
Although this battle over pension reforms is not won it has certainly given this weak government a lot to think about in the coming months.
If people think this is just it a jolly strike and we go back to work and take the cuts they are wrong, The tories are wrong, Labour are wrong for saying these strikes are a mistake.
We are right to fight and right to strike.
The myths the government and its media machine has been going into over drive today trying to pump out its properganda. But thankfully the unions own propeganda machine has been working equally as hard back, with excellent shows by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka owning Francis Maud of the government on radio 4 earlier today. Francis Maud was taken apart and thrown about by Mark Serwotka who had clearly done his homework and exposed the tories as the rich thieving bastards they are i'm afraid.
The fact that public sector pensions are affordable and not unaffordable which the government keep peddling the line. The Hutton report from a labour lord which the government like to push was found to not contain anything on unaffordable pensions for public sector workers.
In fact it showed on a graph quite clearly public sector pensions falling as a cost to the tax payer as a percentage to GDP as the years went by as a prediction for the future.
So many of the tory lies have been defeated rendering the attacks on public sector pensions idealogical and harsh just to pay for the mess the bankers created.
So i am glad today went well but we must not feel this is the end. We must continue to pressure the other unions who were not out today to join us in the autumn while pushing that there is a alternative and that is by taxing the rich who evade billions of tax a year.
I dont think we can emphasise enough how big today may prove to be in the months and years to come. Today was the start of something big. Where the public sector trade unions on behalf of the working class stood up to this con-dem government and said no we will not take your cuts and robberies laying down.
For the first time in many years the biggest show of the labour movement moved into action.
Many doubted it after march 26th thinking oh no these unions havent got the fight and wont organise anything now.
Wrong
They did and many congratulations has to go to those unions who did work so dam hard and i know many of their activists did to get as many out today as possible to oppose this vicious attack on our living standards in many years.
What today has shown us is that when we organise, when we come together and unite we can defeat anyone.
Although this battle over pension reforms is not won it has certainly given this weak government a lot to think about in the coming months.
If people think this is just it a jolly strike and we go back to work and take the cuts they are wrong, The tories are wrong, Labour are wrong for saying these strikes are a mistake.
We are right to fight and right to strike.
The myths the government and its media machine has been going into over drive today trying to pump out its properganda. But thankfully the unions own propeganda machine has been working equally as hard back, with excellent shows by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka owning Francis Maud of the government on radio 4 earlier today. Francis Maud was taken apart and thrown about by Mark Serwotka who had clearly done his homework and exposed the tories as the rich thieving bastards they are i'm afraid.
The fact that public sector pensions are affordable and not unaffordable which the government keep peddling the line. The Hutton report from a labour lord which the government like to push was found to not contain anything on unaffordable pensions for public sector workers.
In fact it showed on a graph quite clearly public sector pensions falling as a cost to the tax payer as a percentage to GDP as the years went by as a prediction for the future.
So many of the tory lies have been defeated rendering the attacks on public sector pensions idealogical and harsh just to pay for the mess the bankers created.
So i am glad today went well but we must not feel this is the end. We must continue to pressure the other unions who were not out today to join us in the autumn while pushing that there is a alternative and that is by taxing the rich who evade billions of tax a year.
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