200 trade unionists, community campaigners and service users marched in Greenwich borough, south London, against the local council’s brutal cuts package, photo Lorraine Dardis (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
It’s official – the Con-Dems’ cuts aren’t a one off – they are after everything we’ve got!
Rob Williams, NSSN anti-cuts campaign, convenor
Cameron has announced his plans to end the “state’s monopoly” over public sector work. The Daily Telegraph calls it his “public sector revolution”. More like counter-revolution! In effect it means large-scale privatisation of what’s left of the NHS, education, council services and the rest of the public services and the welfare state.
Demonstrate on Saturday 5 March
London
March to Labour’s local government conference to demand Labour councils stand up to the Con-Dems
Assemble at 11am, Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, Kennington Road, London SE11
Cardiff
Protest at the Tory and Lib Dem conferences in Cardiff
11am City Hall, Cathays Park, Cardiff for protest march to Wales TUC rally
The Tories and Lib Dems would be handing over public sector workers’ jobs and the services that they deliver and our communities depend on to their friends in the private sector. These parasites will be making super profits off our backs.
This is a warning to the trade union leaders who hope to ‘mitigate’ the worst effects of the cuts. This report shows that we’re not dealing with so-called normal negotiations over efficiencies – savings of a few percentage points here and there.
This is a root and branch destruction of everything that working-class people have fought for over generations and will devastate jobs, services, contracts and pensions. That’s why the unions need to organise coordinated and generalised strike action to defeat Cameron, Clegg & Co.
It has been revealed that ministers are playing what Bob Crow, RMT rail union general secretary, described as “a glorified game of battleships” in preparation to frustrate coordinated strike action by unions. So-called contingency plans include organising strike breakers to cross picket lines.
On top of this there is discussion about extending the anti-trade unions laws, shackles on workers’ rights that were maintained during 13 years of Labour government.
Labour councillors, who are crying crocodile tears while voting for cuts, are only helping the Tories. They should refuse to implement the government’s cuts package. Just one Labour council making a stand would have a massive effect on the anti-cuts movement.
As well as supporting the demo against the Con-Dems in Cardiff, the National Shop Stewards Network’s anti-cuts campaign is marching to the conference of the Labour council leaders on Saturday 5 March in London.
We’ll be presenting a petition calling on them to stand with their workforces and the working-class communities they represent and to defy the Con-Dem government’s demands for cuts.
But we’ll also be issuing them with a warning – if you vote for cuts, we’ll do all we can to make sure that you can’t implement them. We’ll fight you library by library and school by school.
Fantastic protests in Bristol, Pontypridd, Lewisham, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Southampton, Coventry and other places show that a massive movement is being built to face down the Con-Dems and their cuts package.
This will build up to be the real “revolution” and it’s being mobilised every day in protests, lobbies and demonstrations. Momentum is increasing for the TUC demonstration on Saturday 26 March in London where hundreds of thousands of workers and their families will be marching.
But that demo can’t be the end of the anti-cuts movement – only a beginning. The genie will be out of the bottle and the confidence of workers transformed. We demand that the demo is followed up by a one-day strike of all public sector workers leading to a 24-hour general strike. This would get massive support from workers and students and would shatter the plans of Cameron and his greedy friends.
