Workers and youth – unite and fight all cuts
The events that followed the shooting dead of Mark Duggan by the police in Tottenham sent a massive wave of shock across the country. It is urgent that the trade union movement provides a clear response.
The acts that have led to the loss of life and the destruction of ordinary people’s homes and small businesses must be opposed. But, as the PCS statement pointed out, these events have not taken place in a vacuum.
Huge anger has been building among young people who suffer joblessness and poverty pay, the cutting off of access to education, and fundamentally the destruction of their future.
This branch notes that:
- The conditions that have fuelled the anger behind these events remain
- A trade union response is urgently needed that can unite workers and youth in a mass movement that demands the end to all cuts, reversal of all cuts and privatisation and investment in jobs, homes and services
This branch demands:
- No cuts in jobs and public services such as the fire service
- Investment in job creation, education and training
- Re-open and expand closed youth services, such as Connexions
- A 24-hour public sector general strike this autumn against pension attacks, with plans to escalate the action until the government is defeated
This branch resolves to:
- Support the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) lobby of the TUC to demand that steps are urgently taken to prepare the way for a 24-hour public sector general strike this autumn
- Coordinate with other unions and anti-cuts and youth organisations to ensure mass demonstrations are called on the strike day with schools, colleges and working class communities leafleted to ensure a genuinely working class movement is begun
- Support Youth Fight for Jobs with material and financial support but particularly by calling on members to campaign for the Jarrow March for Jobs and to support local initiatives
