The Socialist 8 July 2010

Mass action can stop cuts

Mass action can stop cuts

Build united action to stop the cuts

What the Socialist Party says

Con-Dem budget cuts: Hitting those on benefits hardest

How will George Osborne's budget affect families?

Housing benefit cuts - increasing homelessness

Cuts to disability benefits will increase misery

Fight the savage cuts by Neath/Port Talbot council

Hull: Rallying against the austerity budget

'Godfather' turning in his grave

NUS anti-cuts conference

Youth Fight for Jobs Protest!

BNP forced to abandon its 'festival of hate'

South Africa: 5,000 sacked miners on strike

Kazakhstan: The fight goes on

News in brief

Organise against academies now!

Limited new 'final' offer facing BA cabin crew

PCS will fight new attack on redundancy pay

Unison by-election: fighting leadership needed

Shrewsbury Pickets march for justice

Lindsey refinery fire death: inquiry needed

Workplace news in brief

Unite general secretary election:

Interview: Ken Clarke's prison plans

Pride, prejudice, fightback and hypocrisy

A warm welcome at Summer Camp

Socialism 2010 Saturday 6 - Sunday 7 November

When the financial wizardry lost its magic

Mali's master of the ngoni

Previous issues, etc

Print this issue




Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/632/9937

Google search the site	Printable version	email to friend

Home | The Socialist 8 July 2010 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Bookshop

Fight the savage cuts by Neath/Port Talbot council

LABOUR CONTROLLED Neath/Port Talbot council is threatening to sack its 7,000 strong workforce and re-employ them on worse terms and conditions in a brutal attempt to close a £24 million gap in its budget by 2014.

Alec Thraves, Socialist Party Wales

The changes would mean cuts in rates for overtime, unsociable hours and shift allowance payments. The council also wants to stop the use of council vehicles for 'home to work' travel, change car allowance mileage rates and stop some meal expenses.

The council's head of human resources said this was a situation faced by every local authority in Wales but Neath/Port Talbot was ahead of most in trying to tackle it.

It's a disgrace that a Labour-controlled council is the first in Wales to go on a vicious offensive against low-paid workers.

The message is clear to all council workers in Wales that if Neath/Port Talbot council get away with these cuts then other councils will follow them.

Strike ballot

Unison, the trade union which represents 3,000 of the council staff, said the authority was 'negotiating with a gun to its head'.

Unfortunately, the council are pushing ahead with around 750 voluntary redundancies and have implemented chrages for council staff parking but as expected these are not enough for a Labour council determined to implement further cuts. Understandably some members are hopeful that if they give some concessions their jobs could be saved and most of their terms and conditions retained. As this threat of mass sackings have shown - No Chance!

Unison has called emergency meetings of its members this week to respond to the council's declaration of war.

If the wages, terms and conditions of council workers are to be retained there has to be an immediate strike ballot organised by the council unions in response to this provocation.

Neath/Port Talbot council workers must not be left isolated to fight a battle that will be coming to every local authority in Wales in the near future.

Local authority unions across Wales should convene an emergency conference of shop stewards and union reps to discuss a common, united strategy to defeat these attacks.

As a call of solidarity, Unison should organise an all-Wales public sector march and rally on to the Civic Centre in Port Talbot in early September.

As well as preparing for industrial action, local authority trade unions should start linking up with community campaigners, private sector unions and the general public, who will all be affected by these council cuts.

Militant

Calls must be made on the Labour/Plaid Welsh Assembly government to refuse to implement the Con-Dem cuts and stand alongside the trade unions and anti-cuts campaigners in defending the public sector in Wales.

Like the Militant-led Liverpool Labour council in the 1980s, that stood up against Thatcher's cuts, councils in Wales, along with the Welsh Assembly government, should determine what cash is needed to effectively run our services and take on the new Tory-led government to fight for it!

The only other alternative is to make council workers and those who rely on their services, the most vulnerable in society, pay the price for the bankers' crisis.