Swansea council: early morning cabinet meeting nods through £24 million cuts

Trade unionists in Carmarthenshire lobbying their Labour council for a no-cuts budget in 2014, photo Scott Jones

Trade unionists in Carmarthenshire lobbying their Labour council for a no-cuts budget in 2014, photo Scott Jones   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Alec Thraves, Swansea Socialist Party

If you want to sneak through £24 million of council cuts next year, call a cabinet meeting at 10am when most residents are at work, waffle through the ten minutes allowed for public questions and then vote unanimously for the council officers’ latest round of brutal cuts!

Within 20 minutes Swansea Labour’s cabinet meeting agreed a projected loss this year of 145 teaching posts, 161 council jobs, including 127 from social services, and further cuts of £87 million over the next four years. Some departments face a 30% reduction in their budget.

Several Socialist Party members were able to attend the cabinet meeting to challenge these Labour austerity accomplices who pathetically bleat, year after year, that ‘there is nothing we can do’ except pass on the Tory cuts.

A vote of no confidence in Swansea Labour council was proposed from the public gallery on behalf of residents who are being let down year after year.

Another sham consultation process will now begin. As in previous years residents will only be asked to choose which services should be cut and which should be reduced.

Support for mobilising with other Labour councils in Wales, alongside local government trade unions, teaching unions, parents, residents and community organisations to set a no-cuts budget never appears on the council’s questionnaire!

It is increasingly urgent that Unison, with the other local government and teaching trade unions, prepare and mobilise their members to oppose compulsory job losses and further cuts to services.