Birmingham Labour to axe at least 1,200 jobs in £165m cuts onslaught

TUSC seeks joint campaign with Momentum

Clive Walder, Birmingham Socialist Party

Birmingham's Labour council has drafted budget cuts of £90 million in the next financial year and £75 million in the year after. The 9 December announcement came on top of the £560 million cut since Cameron came to power.

1,218 jobs will go in 2016-17, and an unspecified number the following year. Council workers' terms and conditions are also under attack.

The new council leader, John Clancy, talks more left than his predecessor, the unpopular and arrogant Sir Albert Bore. But he has proposed exactly the same budget as Bore would have.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which includes the Socialist Party, stood candidates against Labour's cuts councillors last year and before. Clancy's budget shows the battle against the cuts requires more than just a change of leader - as do the Blairites Jeremy Corbyn faces in parliament.

TUSC would like to work with Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group, to build the largest possible anti-cuts movement in Birmingham.

Campaign

We will be writing to all Labour candidates to propose a broad, united campaign.

We will back any Labour candidate who pledges to stand with us against the cuts. But we are also prepared to stand against those who support cuts.

Community libraries, school crossing patrols, housing management, youth services and the Connexions careers service will likely be reduced to skeleton staffs. Some will be handed over to private profiteers.

The council proposes to add half an hour on the working week, stop paying sick pay for the first three days, and halve overall sick pay entitlement. Subsistence for those away on business will be stopped and night duty payments reduced. And staff will have to pay for their own annual Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly CRB) checks.

The Birmingham branch of Unison, the largest local government union, is committed to campaigning against these horrific cuts. But it will be necessary for all council unions to come together and build support for industrial action if the council doesn't back down.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.