 The politics of betrayal - Lib Dem Campaign poster May 2010 Following the brutal revelations in the June 22nd emergency budget communities across Scotland face massive cuts in jobs and services and attacks on benefits, pensions and wages as the new ConDem UK Government of David Cameron and Nick Clegg accelerates its assault on public spending. The budget outlines attacks on public services, over £11 billion worth of cuts in benefits and includes a betrayal of Liberal Democrat promises not to raise VAT which will penalise the poorest hardest. Despite some populist rhetoric during the election campaign, both The Labour Party, where it controls councils and the SNP Scottish Government intend to make the cuts asked of them rather than standing up for public services workers and working class people in general.
The Centre for Public Policy for Regions has stated that the cut to next year’s Scottish budget could lie in the range of £1.1bn to £1.5bn – equivalent to a fall from this year of 5.2% to 6.2%. Our politicians should be protecting services to the sick, old, disabled, children and the unemployed not cutting them to pay for the mistakes of millionaire bankers. At a time when Britain ’s 100 richest individuals have a combined personal wealth of over £250 billion and just over a third of this, £90 billion, could end Britain ’s so-called “structural deficit”, there is no justification for the cuts planned. The four main parties in Scotland are not going to defend jobs and services. It is therefore left to trade unionists, socialists and local communities to lead the defence of jobs and services. Many of the trade unions have made the case for an “alternative - no cuts budget” that includes increasing taxes on the rich, attacking the tax avoidance scams of big business and the millionaires, ending expensive PFI contracts, cancelling the replacement for Trident, etc. These demands do at least represent an alternative economic voice from the trade unions. However, we also need action as well as words. As a first step we need to build on the protests already organised against budget. Local trade union branches need to work together and also encourage the involvement of voluntary and community organisations in future protests. Anti-cuts committees should also be set up in local areas, uniting trade unions and communities to plan action. An all Scotland demonstration should be organised in the early autumn called by the STUC under a banner such as “Defend Scotland’s Services”. We also need to build the confidence of members to take industrial action on the issue of pay and campaign hard for the rejection of the local government employers current three year offer of 1%, 0% and 0.5% - a pay cut with inflation at over 5%. Where local strikes against cuts break out, such as in Glasgow Council’s arms length organisation Culture and Sport Glasgow, then strikers must be fully supported by the trade union leaders and the wider membership. We need a trade union movement armed with an industrial action strategy that can protect jobs, wages, welfare benefits and services. We need to work towards national joint trade union action, such as all public sector workers strikes or even general strikes similar to those in Greece and other parts of Europe, aimed at forcing changes to government policies. We must do all we can to ensure that the trade unions are ready to fight in the months and years ahead. We also need to step up the fight for the building of a political voice that fights against the cuts and offers an alternative to the logic of capitalism. Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement is working to do that. That’s why we also united with public sector trade unionists and other socialists to form the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition which stood 10 candidates in the recent general election. Join Solidarity and help build a mass working class party to represent the majority of trade unionists and communities that are now facing the savagery of cuts from this millionaire’s government. Solidarity says; |
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