Build united trade union action – make no cuts
A Birmingham City Council Union Rep
Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, is to send 600 employees to the dole queue. It has issued a Section 114 notice and will cease all non-statutory spending.
This is the same local authority which in 2010 employed over 26,000 people and now employs only 9,500! Wasteful overspending on vanity projects includes a botched new IT system called Oracle at a cost of £100 million and the Commonwealth Games to which Birmingham City Council contributed £184 million, just to name a few. At the same time, just months before the games, the council reported a £25 million black hole in its funding for the event and said that the shortfall would be made up of contingency funds.
Well, it seems that the contingency fund the council had in mind was to kick loyal staff, some of whom have worked for the authority for decades, to the dole queue and forcing them with their begging bowls (with their kids in tow), to the nearest food bank to make ends meet!
‘Consultations’ with employees and trade unions are taking place at pace to consult with those whose jobs are now at risk to plug the £300 million black hole in the council’s finances.
Trade union action needed
Talks and cooperation between the three main council trade unions (Unite, Unison and GMB) must start in earnest to fight these cuts. Coordinated action needs to move with haste before it is too late. Unions cannot stand by and allow these cuts without a fight.
Since the Tory government came to power, 27% in real-terms cuts in core spending, and a lack of councillors prepared to fight these cuts, has left councils across the country without the resilience they need to meet new challenges. By this time next year, demand pressures will have added £15 billion (almost 29%) to the cost of delivering services since 2021-22.
Since 2018, six councils (Labour and Conservative) have effectively declared themselves bankrupt: Slough, Croydon, Thurrock, Woking, Birmingham and Nottingham, and many other councils across the length and breadth of the country have reported that they may have to do the same. (see ‘Nottingham council cuts: Fighting section 114’ at socialistparty.org.uk)
What can councils do?
But what are local authorities doing about it? Nothing! Councils need to organise mass campaigns, working with trade unions and community groups rather than fighting them, to put pressure on central government to reverse and demand that that more money be provided to protect the most vulnerable citizens in our society.
Labour councils like Birmingham continue to carry out cuts on behalf of central government. But what is stopping them spending to save services and getting funding re-imbursed by an incoming Starmer government. This is what public sector unions must be demanding of the Labour leader, and if not be prepared to take steps to launch a new party that can take on the pro-austerity politicians at the next local and general elections.
- Birmingham GMB is currently balloting for strike action over £760 million of unpaid equal pay claims.
Birmingham Socialist Party public meeting:
Socialist change is possible – but not with Starmer’s Labour! How can we get a voice for the working class
Monday 29 January, 7pm, Top floor, The Wellington, 37 Bennetts Hill Birmingham city centre, B2 5SN
No council tax rise!
Birmingham Labour council leader John Cotton has, instead of standing up and fighting the cuts, asked permission from Westminster to raise council tax by 10% every year for the next two years
