Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/627/9739
From The Socialist newspaper, 2 June 2010
Coventry - time for mass action
THE PEOPLE of Coventry saw this week what the Con-Dem coalition government's 'new politics' looks like, with the announcement of around 1,000 job losses in the city.
Peter Chase
The £6 billion worth of cuts that the government will be making includes 330 jobs going at Becta, the schools IT agency, and 500 at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA). Linked to these cuts are further job losses at the Skills Funding Agency (formerly the Learning and Skills Council).
The offices that QCDA operate from are virtually brand new, with many staff having relocated recently from London. Coventry's manufacturing base has been destroyed during past Tory and Labour governments, and the public sector employs thousands of people in the area.
This is just the start - before further budgetary announcements locally and nationally. Coventry city council is going to make cuts of at least £72 million over the next three years. City College has announced 50 job cuts. The city's two universities will be under pressure, as will the NHS, Royal Mail and countless other workplaces, for example Ericsson said recently they will be leaving the city, causing 700 job losses.
If that wasn't enough, there are press reports that Foleshill sports centre could close due to lack of funds - with job losses and the disappearance of a key community facility. The Socialist Party says that nothing about this is inevitable. Ordinary people in Coventry did not cause this crisis, just as workers in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain or anywhere else did not cause it - but we are all being asked to pay the price for it.
The Socialist Party was campaigning in Coventry city centre on Saturday 29 May, arguing that these attacks need to be met with a huge response. The trade unions must link up with the wider community to resist this massacre of jobs.
We need a movement as big as the one that brought down Thatcher's poll tax. Ordinary people did it then, we can do it again.
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In The Socialist 2 June 2010:
British Airways cabin crew strike
British Airways strike: Full support for the cabin crew
Environment and socialism
Oil spill is 'worst environmental disaster' to hit US
Socialist Party news and analysis
No to privatised academies: Defend public education
Millionaire cabinet plans cuts in benefits
Interview with sacked Telegen workers
Youth Fight for Jobs: More trade unions add their support
Anti-racism
Cardiff says 'no' to the racist EDL
Housing crisis
Gateshead tenants demand decent homes
Socialist Party LGBT
Socialists campaign for Pride not profit in Birmingham
Marxist analysis: history
Margaret Thatcher: Why workers cannot forget
Scotland
Minority representation in Scotland for Westminster coalition of cuts
Socialist Party Scotland to be launched
Socialist Party workplace news
Fighting council cuts: Planning for united strikes in Kirklees
PCS conference Defend the public sector
Coventry - time for mass action
Will the councils fight the cuts?
University and Colleges Union: Congress votes to fight
International socialist news and analysis
Jamaican armed forces surround and storm poor neighbourhood
Workers' suicides: The human cost of an iPad
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